Washington wrestling has plenty to brag about in the past few years. They’ve picked up six-consecutive conference titles without losing a single match, and have plenty of wrestlers that will, or already have surpassed the 100-win mark. Pam Pack junior wrestler Tristen Nixon is now in elite company, as he clinched his 100th victory last weekend at Manteo High School in the team’s last tournament before this upcoming weekend’s 2-A Eastern Carolina Conference tournament.

So far this year, Nixon has compiled a 42-11 record, and placed highly in many of the weekend tournaments he’s participated in this year.

He picked up a third-place finish at the Beast of the East tournament at Croatan High School this past December, a second-place finish in the Jolly Roger invitational and another second-place finish at the 28th-annual Pierce-Davis Memorial Tournament.

This past weekend at Manteo, Nixon surpassed the 100-win milestone, but says he still has more to accomplish.

 

“It felt very good, especially considering when I got here my freshman year I wasn’t very good at all,” Nixon said. “I need to continue grinding it out in practice, I’m trying to get to state and hopefully place this year.”

The state wrestling playoffs have two different tournaments. One tournament is for the whole team, and then another is for individuals.

The top-16 wrestlers from the state in their respective weight class will make the field in Greensboro, and Nixon currently holds a top-3 seed for the eastern region. However, Nixon still has to wrestle in this upcoming weekend’s conference tournament and in state duals before moving onto the individual tournament in a couple of weeks.

“My ultimate goal for next year is to definitely win state, or atleast win regionals. You have to be in the top four at regionals to get to state,” Nixon said. “I also want to get coach (Chris) Penhollow to wear pants, and he only does that if the team or an individual wrestler makes it to the finals.”

According to coach Penhollow, he has not worn pants since his arrival in Washington. As a Minneapolis, Minnesota native, he’s accustomed to the cold and has no problems baring the mildly cold winter temperatures in eastern North Carolina.

“Tristen has worked really hard. He didn’t have a lot of strength when we first got him, but when I first met him he came to a summer camp here and was just finishing up at P.S. Jones. I did notice that he had good hips and body (control) with a little attitude,” Penhollow said. “I told some of the guys that he’d probably slide into our starting lineup and he did that his freshman year at 113-pounds. But the last couple of years he’s really taken off. We didn’t think he was going to make it out of regionals and get into state last year, but he stuck a kid that pinned him earlier in the year in the blood-round and advanced.”

Nixon runs cross-country in fall and you can find him on the baseball diamond in the spring. However, his attention has currently turned to the 2-A ECC conference tournament this weekend at Ayden-Grifton High School. The festivities begin around 10 a.m.