2006-07 Season
The 2006-2007 will long be remembered not only as one of Cary’s best but one of North Carolina’s best. Twelve seniors lead the way and will surely be missed. Luke Wallace, Casey Peterson, Shashant Shah, Chip Reap, and Jimmy O’Brien all made great contributions to the success of this year’s run to both titles, duals and individuals. Luke worked out as Sophomore State Champion Eloheim Palma’s personal workout partner, while the others all were very experienced technical wrestlers who helped groom our younger wrestlers. Peterson and Shah place 1st and 2nd respectively in the Westover tourney, while Luke defeated a ranked wrestler during the season. These seniors would’ve started for any other team and were a great assest to our underclassmen.The season started out with tourney wins at Westover and Orange. These were followed by a trip to New York State to compete in the Tri-Valley Tournament. 25 teams from four different New York Sections would be there to try and win over a very tough field. Sections II (Queensbury, LaSalle, Ballston Spa), V (Wayne), IV (Tioga) and III (Mexico), all had teams in the tourney that would finish the season ranked in the top two of their section! In NY a section has approx. 80 schools in it so this was one of the premier tourneys in the State. Cary got on one of it’s 07′ patented rolls and bulldozed the consolation rounds to a 99 point victory. This was truly a trip the team will long remember and was still being talked about at New York States in early March. From here the wrestlers went on to defend their title at The Tiger Classic, the toughest tourney in North Carolina again winning large over Ragsdale (3A Runner-up) and Jesuit, La. (#1 ranked in La.) plus 25 other strong teams. The wins in these two tourneys, NY and Tiger, pushed Cary into the #2 spot in the United States SE Region and #25 nationally as ranked by Wrestling USA Magazine.January the schedule lightened up some with wins in the East Burke and Millbrook dual tourneys and then a victory at the Miller-Mott tourney was followed by some more duals with the meeting with Rival Riverside lurking ahead in the State Duals.
All 14 Cary Wrestlers were named All-Conference and even more amazingly all made the conference finals in the Tri-8 tournament. This feat was followed by the state duals where Cary met up with Riverside in the East Semi-Finals at Jack Britt High School on a Thursday in early Feb. A tense match up as this was #1 vs #2 in the 4A state of NC. going at it. Cary prevailed and followed with a pretty large win over Eastern Regional Champions Jack Britt. This set up the state final with West Forsyth who had eliminated the west competition of Mt. Tabor, Davie Co. etc. On Feb. 10th a near capacity Cary crowd witnessed the largest point total and margin of victory ever occurring in the history of NC State duals regardless of state classification. 53-9 was the final count thanks to three wrestlers coming from behind to pull off victories, Gabe Brotzman, Tommy Freeman, and Khang Nguyen. While Brotzman knocked off the #1 ranked (and 4A state champ) both Tommy and Khang kept the crowd buzzing as all three had unbelievable efforts to win in the final seconds. Lawrence White won again and with his 5-0 dual meet record for the week and beating a #1 wrestler and also a Riverside future 4A state champ he was awarded Co-MOW along with brotzman for the State Tourney Duals.Next up..defending the Regional title for the 15th consecutive year. This is quite a record when you think about there are only four regions in the state and the ME regional is generally considered the toughest in the State.
In recent years it’s featured #1 and #2 Riverside or Cary in any order. This year Cary advanced 11 wrestlers to the State Individual tourney with a great effort at Chapel Hill HS, setting up a chance to run the table for the season.North Carolina States were not a given as both Mt. Tabor and Riverside were in it after the 1st day. Cary would have to depend on the wrestle-backs and semis to pull out the win. The semis went fairly well with four of five winning and only Long Wang’s tough fought bout with Sparrow (4-Time Champion) as the only set-back. The key now was the wrestle-backs. Cary copied the 06′ format and burnt through the consolation brackets, in fact three wrestlers, Hoerdemann, Dixon and White all defeated wrestlers that had beaten them earlier on Friday! Everyone of the 11 wrestlers scored important points with Hoerdemann 5th, Wang and White 4th, and Dixon and Parker-Risk placing 3rd.Amazingly, for the third time (98′, 00′ being the others) Cary had all four finalist win! Joey Farnsworth, Justin Koren, Thomas Ferguson and Eloheim Palma all went into the tourney ranked #1 in their weight classes and made sure to prove the prognosticators correct with big wins.The teammates from this team will long remember what a truly special group of guys they were a part of.
From the 1st year, 9th grade wrestler to the senior star everyone will remember the Joey’s, Thomas’s, Trevor’s, Long’s, Sam’s, Tommy’s and Khang’s that made these seniors so different talent-wise as well as personality-wise. Some top individual performances were:Joey’s 63-0 record, never giving up a takedown, a reversal, a escape, back points, cautions, stallings, etc. An unbelievable record that you teammates got to witness first-hand. Also, Joey’s pub-run of newspapers, Sports Illustrated, etc. being the #1 senior at 103 in the nation and being selected to the Dream team!
Thomas’s 133-2 record in his last two years at Cary. His two Pre-Season National Championships, his super duck, winning two State Titles a earning a scholarship to North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Sam’s pinning. 43 pins tied him with Joey as the team’s leader, he had four in the State tournament. It was always exciting watching Sam tear into his opponent. Trevor’s repeat of last years Saturday run. Placing 4th and 3rd in the state both years beating people who had beat him earlier. His inside trip…bar arm Long’s will to win and turning it up a notch at the end of the season. Being a 3X state qualifier and having his hard work pay off with a 4th place finishWatching Tommy and Khang compete, Tommy always out-weighed throwing legs, Khang always battling and winning most, reaching the Orange finals and being robbed up in NY vs a NY state runner-up.Underclassmen, Justin Koren, NHSCA All-American and now State Champ, Brendon Parker-Risk, two-time state placer, Gabe Brotzman, 2X qualifier and 6th place, Lawrence White, 4th placer and Eloheim Palma Cary’s first Heavyweight Champion and Cary’s first Sophomore State Champion all were fun to watch and sure to be in the mix of Cary’s run for the title in 2008!