Weather forces draw for TCC seedings
By Megan Crotty
Sports Writer, The Courier-Tribune
ASHEBORO - Apparently Mother Nature wasn't in the mood for a wrestling
tournament - much less any other sporting event - Saturday.
The teams in the Tri-County Conference attempted to have their first-ever
league meet at Southwestern Randolph High School's Jack Castelloe Gymnasium,
but were forced to stop the meet in the early rounds of the consolation
semifinals as snow and sleet started blanketing the streets.
The meet may be completed next Saturday depending on if there are teams
that make it into the state dual finals. If it is possible to complete the
meet, it will have to be a unanimous decision, according to tournament director
Trent Taylor.
In order to decide seeding for state, the Ragsdale, Eastern Randolph
and Southwestern Randolph coaches, whose teams all finished the regular
season with 6-1 records in the TCC, drew for their spots out of a fast food
bag. Three cards were placed in the bag, two with X's on them and one with
a "1" on it.
The coaches drew in alphabetical order with ER drawing first, an "X"
and Ragsdale drawing second, a "1."
The draw made Ragsdale the No. 1 seed, SWR the No. 2 seed and ER the
No. 3 seed.
Ragsdale will face North Iredell, while SWR takes on Northwest Cabarrus
and ER grapples against Anson County.
"There isn't anything you can do," SWR coach Chris Waddell
said. "We were having a good tournament. For the most part, I'm pleased."
ER coach Greg Hardin would have liked to see the tournament completed.
"It feels incomplete," he said.
"We had some good matches; we had some bad matches. I wanted to
see the finals - we had eight in the finals and they all worked hard to
get there. We wanted to break the draw on the mats."
Heading into Saturday's consolation semifinals, Ragsdale and Eastern
Randolph were tied for first with 128 points apiece, while Southwestern
Randolph was third (76), Trinity fourth (66), Union Pines fifth, Southeast
Guilford sixth, Asheboro seventh and High Point Central eighth.
Toward the end of the semifinal round, an audible buzz could be heard
through the crowd involving the word "snow," which prompted many
of the fans, students and even wrestlers to leave the gym to romp in the
snow during the short break that followed.
The consolation semifinals were up to the 119's with the 125ers on deck
when it was announced that the final matches of the day were taking place.
The Wildcats' Jimmy Brown (112) was on the mat during the final bout of
the night and fell in a 4-3 decision to his Ragsdale opponent.
Copyright 2002, Stephens Media Group
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