SALISBURY — Scottie Ford lived up to his No. 1 seeding in last week’s Bayside Conference wrestling tournament, and he made it look easy.
The Kent County High School senior went 3-0 with a pair of first-period pins and a technical fall as the 165-pound champ.
After two low-scoring match-ups this season against North Caroline’s Michael Dyke, including a 7-0 decision in the title bout of the Battle of the Bridge tournament about a month ago, the unbeaten Ford (29-0) stuck Dyke in 1 minute, 37 seconds on Feb. 21 to capture his third straight Bayside crown.
None of Ford’s three matches at Baysides went the distance.
After receiving a first-round bye, Ford decked Easton’s Anthony Melendez-Martinez in 62 seconds to open his bid for a conference three-peat.
He toyed with Wicomico’s Adelson Theajune in the semifinals with a series of takedowns followed by near-falls before building the required 15-point advantage for a technical fall — in this case, 22-4 — with 3:57 elapsed.
Ford was just as dominating in the championship match, pinning No. 2 seed Dyke with 23 seconds remaining in the first period.
Two others KCHS seniors also podiumed — Tye Bellarin and Noah Iacona, who placed second at 132 and 144 pounds, respectively.
Bellarin brought the crowd to its collective feet when he caught three-time defending state champion Elijah Collick of Stephen Decatur on his back in a defensive scramble from a takedown. But, University of Nebraska commit Collick (39-1) would rally from a 7-0 first-period deficit to win by major decision, 18-10.
Bellarin upset No. 2 seed Landon Shanks of Queen Anne’s in the semifinals, 4-1, after a 21-1 tech fall of North Caroline’s Caleb Melvin in the quarters.
Iacona (25-7) won by major decision over Kent Island’s Gavin Taylor in their 144-pound semifinal, 17-9, avenging a loss by tech fall in the KCHS-Kent Island dual match on Jan. 23. He’d already defeated Decatur’s Tim McCormick, 10-6, and walloped St. Michaels’ Gavin Murphy, 17-1, to advance.
North Caroline had its only individual champion in No. 1 seed Jacob Carpenter (31-2), who was a 20-3 winner over Iacona.
Kent County’s team in the coed tournament also included freshmen Jake Stumpf (138 pounds) and Noel Farinacci (150 pounds), who went 0-2 in their respective brackets.
Autumn Smolens (115 pounds) was the Trojans’ only wrestler in the girls tournament.
Head coach Chris Yiannakis said Smolens “had some good matches and definitely shows improvement and that she is coachable.”
Two other Trojans — Karoly Quevedo (100 pounds) and Taylor Franklin (130 pounds) — were kept off the mat as they continued to heal from injuries, according to Yiannakis.
Parkside High School in Salisbury hosted the one-day Bayside Conference tournament.
The top four place-finishers at Baysides automatically qualified for the Friday-Saturday, Feb. 27-28 Class 1A/2A East Region tournament, which is how Ford, Bellarin and Iacona punched their tickets.
Stumpf accumulated enough points during the season to qualify, and will have to win his pigtail match Friday in order to stay in the tournament.
For more, see https://theeveningenterprise.com/kchs-ford-bellarin-are-no-1-seeds-in-state-qualifying-region-wrestling-tournament/
