Pam Pack wrestling starts season on right foot

Published 5:24 pm Tuesday, November 24, 2015

DAVID CUCCHIARA | DAILY NEWS HOT START: Jacob Smith squares off against an opponent in a match last season. He was one of three Pam Pack wrestlers to go 5-0 at the Fike “Demon Duels” this past weekend.

DAVID CUCCHIARA | DAILY NEWS
HOT START: Jacob Smith squares off against an opponent in a match last season. He was one of three Pam Pack wrestlers to go 5-0 at the Fike “Demon Duels” this past weekend.

WILSON — Washington wrestling has enjoyed a strong start to the season. The Pam Pack recently made the trek to Wilson to compete in Fike’s “Demon Duels.” They placed first out of the dozen teams competing, thanks to wins over Beddingfield, Clinton, Southern Nash, C.B. Aycock and Fike.

Jacob Smith, Simeon Pope and DyKarion Credle each won all five of their matches to help lead Washington to the win. Smith won three of his matches by fall and the other two by forfeit. Pope won two by decision, two by forfeit and one by fall. Credle won one by fall, one by major decision, one by technical decision and two by forfeit.

The Pam Pack are off to a great start for following up last year’s Eastern Plains Conference championship. Three seniors — Neill Jennings, Bryant Romero and Milton Cobb — and a strong group of juniors lead the team.

There’s also a lot of young talent to look forward to. In the freshman ranks, Dylan Modlin and Logan Nichols are two wrestlers to look out for. Nichols wrestled heavyweight before Jennings returned from football to fill that role.

Head coach Chris Penhollow also said to watch for the continued development of sophomores Marcus Sneed and Austin Koonce.

“We’ve got a good nucleus of young kids,” he said, singing the praises of the middle school wrestling program.

Much like last season, the Pam Pack lost an outing early on. They fell, 36-30, to Havelock in their first meeting of the year. They turned right around and thumped Rose 54-27. The two contests gave Washington a sort of trial by fire in that they kicked off the season against bigger schools.

“We lost a close one to Havelock,” Penhollow said. “Simeon didn’t make weight that night, so that hurt. We had some younger guys that were doing well, but made a mistake and lost some matches. We scheduled a lot tougher this year to try and get ready for the end of the year once we get in the playoffs.”

Washington travels to Ayden-Grifton on Wednesday to take on the Chargers, Pamlico County and Farmville Central. The idea is for each wrestler to get in as many matches as possible before the Thanksgiving break.

“We try to schedule as much as we can before Thanksgiving,” Penhollow said. “Depending on how much you wrestle, you can have as many as 10 wins before Thanksgiving.

Washington returns from its break to host North Lenoir and South Central on Dec. 3.