Wrestling takes off at Ridge Christian Academy | Sports | Summerville Journal Scene

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Wrestling takes off at Ridge Christian Academy

Published Friday, February 10, 2012 9:50 AM

By Roger Lee
Summerville Journal Scene ®

At Ridge Christian Academy the terms student athlete and wrestler are nearly synonymous.

The private school located on the Berkeley County side of Summerville only has 46 students and this year 23 of them participated in the wrestling program. Impressive considering not all of the young men and young women at the school are athletes.

Wrestling coach Allen Horn says he can’t pinpoint exactly why there is so much interest in the sport, but he sure is glad there is.

“I don’t know why so many come out,” he said. “I mean I recruit heavily in the school from grades eight to 12, but I think it also has something to do with the great assistant coaches I have. Plus, we don’t have many big kids here so maybe because of their size the kids are more interested in wrestling than football or basketball. In wrestling you only compete against opponents your own size.”

The school formed its first wrestling team only three school years ago. The team practiced in the school’s chapel on an old mat formerly used by Academic Magnet. The school eventually obtained a better mat and this season for the first time was able to host wrestling matches. To Horn’s surprise, matches attracted as many fans as the school’s basketball games.

And they got their money’s worth as the team was very competitive. Ridge Christian recently wrapped up its season by sending several wrestlers to the SCISA Class A varsity and junior varsity individual state championship tournaments.

Cody Mayberry won the 113-pound weight class at the JV tournament and placed third in the class at the varsity tournament. Nine other Ridge Christian wrestlers also placed at the JV tournament.

Jonathan Driggers won the 170-pound class and Hunter Keller won at 126.

In the 90-pound class, Nate Shumpert placed second and Brycen Gibson placed third. At 106, Jeremiah Auston placed fourth. At 113, Austin Pye finished as the state runner-up and David Austin placed fifth. At 126, Dennis Berry finished as the state runner-up. At 138, Terrell Peterson placed third.

“For athletics, wrestling may be the future for our school,” Horn said. “Outside of Bishop England, we are the only private school in the area to offer wrestling. Most of our athletes are young so I’m very excited about what the next few years. It’s a bit magical having so many coming out for the team and so many sticking with it.”

The coach said that in some quad meets earlier this year many of his wrestlers even did well against wrestlers representing some of the larger public schools.

Contact Roger Lee @ 873-9424 ext. 213 or rlee@journalscene.com

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