Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

In the state 4-A individual tournament at the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, Davie traveled a road that can’t be located on any wrestling map.
The week before in the Midwest Regional, the War Eagles did not have a regional champion.
In Greensboro, they did not have an individual state champion.
But when all was said and done, the War Eagles had the hardware – their third state title in two years. That’s a trifecta that never happens. But it’s happened at least once. It happened Feb. 24.
After day one on Feb. 22, the War Eagles were sitting in third with 20.5 points, while Hough had 25.5 and Cardinal Gibbons 23.5. After day two, Davie had a 104-91 lead over Hickory Ridge. When it was over, Davie was the repeat individual champ with 110 points to Hough’s 106.5 and Hickory Ridge’s 106.
“It was just a rollercoaster,” Davie’s second-year coach, Josh Stanley, said. “It was pretty sweet. For the boys that lost the finals, that’s always bittersweet, but it was amazing (to win the state as a team).”
The War Eagles, who were projected by RankWrestlers to have 53 points and finish sixth, made Hough and Hickory Ridge scratch where they don’t itch by producing four runner-ups and two fifth-place finishers.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever had four in the finals,” Stanley said.
Sophomore Aidan Szewcyzk, senior Cayden Glass and juniors Tiaj Thao and Elliott Gould came away with silver medals. Senior Brett Foster and junior Andy Davis took fifth to help Davie win the state individuals for the third time, the others coming in 1995 and 2024.
At 120, Szewcyzk rolled into the finals with a tech fall, a decision and a pin. He was stopped in the finals by a mighty junior from Mooresville, Jace Barrier, who took a 5-1 decision to up his record to 54-1. Szewcyzk, who was fifth last year at 113, went 24-2 as a sophomore and has a career record of 53-8.
“We were expecting him to be in the finals, but the way he did it was super impressive,” Stanley said.
At 126, Glass was his typical dominant self in the first three rounds, pinning twice and winning by tech fall. In the finals, he ran into a roadblock named Aiden White, a 46-2 sophomore from Weddington who won 13-8. It was the second state runner-up for Glass, who went 45-6 this season and 147-37 for his career.
“He tried a big move in the finals and went to his back,” Stanley said of White’s seven-point haymaker. “He shouldn’t have done it, but you can’t stop a kid like Cayden and I wasn’t trying to stop him. You can’t stifle him. If he sees a move, he’s going to go for it. He’s just a killer, and that’s why he techs and pins. You live by the sword and you die by the sword.”
At 132, Thao opened with a tech and a decision. In the semifinals, he caught lightning in a jar, erasing a 7-1 deficit and pinning Tyton Kostoff. This was a massive moment because this was a matchup against Hough.
In the finals, Thao faced Cardinal Gibbons star senior Liam Hickey, who mounted a commanding 11-0 lead in the first period. But Thao responded with an electrifying comeback before falling short 16-13. Hickey – who is 123-3 over three years, including 35-0 this year – won his second state title.
“A massive underdog,” Stanley said of Thao. “Not in our eyes because we knew the style matchup there, but Liam is a commitment to (North) Carolina. He’s one of the highest profile kids in the state. Nobody had even tested him this year. He just techs or pins everybody. I’m not sure that he had even wrestled a full match this year. But we knew if we could get him into deep water that T would have a chance. T’s quirky and he can reverse you and do amazing stuff that most guys can’t do because of his mobility and he’s so patient.”
Storming back like a man possessed, Thao actually had Hickey on his back twice. The referee did not slap the mat as Thao followed up his third-place sophomore year with a 38-6 junior season. His career record is 115-25.
“(Hickey) put T on his back twice and he fought his butt off,” Stanley said. “T just did what T does and he wore on him and got him tired. He got a cradle and put him on his back. In the third period, T threw (Hickey) on his back. He was so close to having a pin. The place was going crazy for T and I was celebrating with him. T is another amazing human. He comes off smiling and celebrating with us after a heartbreaking match like that when he’s chasing the state title. I get that it’s hard for a referee to slap the mat against a kid like that. It was tough for me to watch, but it was amazing to watch.”
At 150, Gould started his run with a decision and a pin. In the semifinals against Northwest Guilford’s Jack Gibson, Gould delivered one of Davie’s magical moments, a takedown with one second left to win 6-5. In the finals, Gould ran into an impenetrable wall, Hough’s 51-1 senior Jackson Rowling, and lost by pin. Gould went 41-9 with his second state appearance, and he’ll carry a 93-36 career record into next year.
“Elliott is just an amazing kid,” Stanley said. “It was his gas tank; it was his will (in the semifinals). He took the shot with five seconds left. We’ve watched the video a thousand times. He’s a great human being and I’ve been trying really hard to get the physicality out of him and being gritty and mean out there. And man, it just came together at the right time.”
Davie’s climb to the top in a field of 66 teams was also a testament to Foster and Davis. Foster’s 3-2 effort at 138 featured a dramatic 7-4 overtime win in the fifth/sixth match.
“Brett being in that position – after the year he’s had, after the career he’s had with a neck surgery, a knee injury, I could go on and on – and then to get a state placement and the way he did it at the end was just amazing,” Stanley said after Foster finished 30-12 as a senior and 88-24 in his career. “If he doesn’t win that, I think we’d win by one point, but we don’t know that at the time, so we’re thinking everything’s on this. So it was an amazing opportunity for him to step up right there.”
In the battle for fifth at 144, Davis delivered a breathtaking pin over Hickory Ridge senior Asher Watson. He went 3-2 in his second state appearance, finished the season 25-6 and will sport an 84-20 career record next year.
“We had to have him win that fifth-place match for us to win it,” Stanley said. “He could have been thinking about himself there. He could have been down and out (after a 1-0 loss). It was a worst-case scenario for him, and he’s got to go out there and put it on the line again. He did it and did it with passion. That was everything. We knew what our finals matchups were – we knew the odds of us winning any of the finals was going to be tough – so it was amazing.”
Part of the credit goes to sophomore Jack Bost at 113. In the first round, he would have made Houdini proud, turning a 7-0 deficit into a wild 19-12 comeback win over Cardinal Gibbons senior Spencer Sterling. Although he dropped his next two matches, Bost went 33-15 for the year.
Davie carried nine guys to Greensboro. The other two were junior Maddox Creason at 190 and senior Ryder Strickland at heavyweight. While both went 0-2, Strickland enjoyed an absolutely fantastic senior year, going 44-4 and leaving with a career record of 126-41 that included 80 pins.
“He lost some really tight matches,” Stanley said. “It didn’t end the way he wanted, but he had an absolutely amazing career. Football is his thing but his family’s always been for us and for the wrestling program. He’s banged up and he did what he could do. So I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
The War Eagles are back-to-back state champs – they swept the duals and the individual trophies last year – for the first time since 1994-95, and they have every reason to believe that further greatness awaits them.
“We’re going to be really good next year,” Stanley said. “We have plans in the offseason to get stronger. That’s where we lacked this year. I didn’t make enough emphasis on strength training, which was my mistake, and we’ll correct that. We’ve got some young guys coming up that are really good. Then after that, we get really good. I mean, we’ve got fifth- and sixth-grade guys coming up the pipeline that are super impressive. All these kids are wrestling national events every weekend.”
Notes: Stanley is blessed with an all-star coaching staff (Timmy Allen, Russell Hilton, Jordon Nolan, Caleb Spurlin and Isaiah Whitley). “Obviously I get a lot of credit for everything, but we have an army of coaches,” he said. “Everybody has their own spot that they fill for the team. Most of them have jobs outside of the school system. They’re taking time away from their family and nobody’s really getting anything from it other than just the enjoyment of being out there with the boys.” … Stanley gave verbal roses to his wife Ashley. “Ashley has to deal with a lot being married to me,” he said. “People ask how I balance the club program and Davie? She is the cheat code. She cheers for the wrestlers for three days straight like they are her own kids. She gets no glory, no pictures of her. Being a coach’s wife is tough. She does it well.”