UPPER MARLBORO — Photographs taken immediately after Tye Bellarin rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a state title by decision, 6-5, Kent County High School’s senior 132-pounder put up two fingers on each hand, a gesture indicating that he’d been there before.
Yes, and no.
Bellarin was the Delaware champion at 113 pounds in 2024 when attending Red Lion Christian Academy, but this is his first Maryland state title.
And his first year wrestling as a Trojan.
Bellarin transferred from Red Lion in Bear, Delaware to KCHS at some point in his junior year, but did not wrestle.
His first dual match as a Trojan wasn’t until Feb. 4, 2026, and he would finish with a modest 11-2 record.
Along the way he would place second in the Bayside Conference tournament on Feb. 21, losing to Stephen Decatur’s four-time Class 3A/4A state champ and Nebraska commit Elijah Collick (46-1), and first in the state-qualifying 1A/2A East Region tournament on Feb. 28 when he pinned Queen Anne’s senior Landon Shanks in the second period of the title bout.
Bellarin also had beaten Shanks in the Bayside tournament semifinals, 4-1.
They would meet for a third time March 7 on the biggest stage, The Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, the venue for the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association wrestling tournament.
Shanks (40-5) scored the first takedown and took a 3-0 lead with 15 seconds remaining in the first period, but Bellarin escaped before the period was over.
Bellarin closed to 3-2 when Shanks was penalized a point for stalling with five seconds to go in the middle period, and took the lead, for good, 5-3, with a takedown 22 seconds into the third period.
Bellarin would score what held up to be the winning point when Shanks was penalized again for stalling.
Shanks escaped with 1:09 to go to make it 6-4 and pulled to within 6-5 when Bellarin was called for stalling with all but three seconds elapsed.
Bellarin is Kent County’s first state champion since Trey Kohl won the second of his back-to-back titles in 2003, and he is the first Trojan to reach the finals since Justin Peacock was the runner-up at 170 pounds in 2014.
“We are proud and grateful that he saved the last dance for us back at home in Kent County where it all started for him,” KCHS head coach Chris Yiannakis told The Evening Enterprise.
Tye Bellarin and his older brother Alex were some of the very first wrestlers for Yiannakis back in the day when he was just starting out as a junior league coach.
“I coached them for three or four years before their dad took them to other clubs,” Yiannakis said, “but they still wrestled for us off and on.”
Alex started out at KCHS and was a state qualifier as a freshman at 106 pounds in 2020.
There was no state tournament in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic.
The following year, Alex was enrolled at Laurel High School, where he was unbeaten (27-0) on his way to the Maryland 3A/4A state title at 126 pounds.
The expectation was that Tye would attend Kent County High School.
“His freshman year we all thought he was coming to Kent right up until a few weeks before the season. He was at preseason workouts with us,” Yiannakis said.
Tye Bellarin would end up at KCHS, but not until mid-year into his junior year.
His wrestling career as a Trojan would be brief, but brilliant.
Seeded fourth in the 16-man state tournament bracket, Bellarin pinned No. 1 seed Devon Opel of Northern Garrett just 17 seconds into the final frame of their semifinal match — what coach Yiannakis deemed to be Bellarin’s “toughest match strategically.”
Bellarin had advanced with a pair of technical falls, i.e., essentially a mercy rule-abbreviated match when a wrestler gains a 15-point [or more] advantage over his opponent. He mastered Poolesville junior Ethan Dimmerling, 18-3, with 3:06 elapsed in the prelims on March 5 and Owings Mills senior Jeffery Baltazar, 15-0, just ahead of the horn to end the first period of their quarterfinal match the following day.
Kent County senior Scottie Ford was the No. 2 seed at 165 pounds, and would carry a 34-0 record into the state semifinals, where he lost in extra time to eventual state champion Anthony Rodrigues of South Carroll, 9-7.
Ford would go on to place fourth for the second year in a row.
In the prelims Ford stuck Harford Tech sophomore Nicholas Gibson in 22 seconds and in the quarterfinal round he defeated Northern Garrett junior Lukas Wolf by a 3-2 decision to avenge last year’s loss in the consolation finals.
After the overtime loss to Rodrigues, Ford decisioned Lackey’s William Chism, 6-3, to get a chance to wrestle for third and fourth where he would be paired with Wolf again.
Wolf won the rematch, 7-2, to repeat as a bronze medalist.
Ford finishes 35-2 on the season.
“We all would have loved to see him reach higher on that podium,” Yiannakis said. “I know he has bigger things coming [Ford has committed to King’s College in Pennsylvania], but I hope we get to keep seeing him around the mats here in Kent County. Kent County is going to need guys like him in the future to keep us alive.”
Yiannakis said Ford’s overall record of 139-18 “speaks clear enough for him as one of the great Trojans.”
Ford’s accomplishments include: four-time team captain, four-time KCHS outstanding wrestler and two-time team MVP; four-time state qualifier and two-time consolation finalist; three-time Bayside Conference champion; three-time region finalist and two-time region champion. He also won three Kent Holiday and three Andy Perez Memorial tournaments, as well as the 2026 Battle at the Bridge tournament where he was recognized as the outstanding wrestler in the upper weights.
NOTE: Kent County senior 144-pounder Noah Iacona, who placed fifth in the 1A/2A East Region tournament, was an alternate for the state tournament and moved up when a qualifier did not make weight.
At states, Iacona lost by pin in the preliminary round to No. 4 seed James Kunz of Lackey, and was eliminated after being pinned by Hereford’s Wyatt Ulshafer in the first round of the wrestlebacks.
