Baumholder's Austin Mauldin and Bitburg's Ceth Haney grapple on the mat during a wrestling meet at RAF Alconbury, England, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Haney won the 152-pound weight class match, but Mauldin would go on to place second in the bracket. (Adam L. Mathis/Stars and Stripes)
Baumholder's Austin Mauldin and Bitburg's Ceth Haney grapple on the mat during a wrestling meet at RAF Alconbury, England, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Haney won the 152-pound weight class match, but Mauldin would go on to place second in the bracket. (Adam L. Mathis/Stars and Stripes)
Alconbury's Nick Dufresne holds Baumholder's Yorel Smalls during a wrestling meet at RAF Alconbury, England, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Dufresne won the match and took first in the 182-pound bracket. (Adam L. Mathis/Stars and Stripes)
Alconbury's Dee Wilson cradles Bitburg's Ceth Haney during a wrestling meet at RAF Alconbury, England, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015. Wilson won the match due to a disqualification. (Adam L. Mathis/Stars and Stripes)
RAF ALCONBURY, England – Not surprisingly, Lakenheath dominated Saturday’s wrestling meet at RAF Alconbury, the final event of the regular season.
Being the largest school at the meet helped. The Lancers had the top team score, 229 points, in part because they were the only school who even had a contender, Casey Fairchild, in the 285-pound bracket.
But Lakenheath displayed both quantity and quality, taking first in nine out of 14 weight classes.
Zack Adamson, a Lakenheath senior, took first in the 138-pound weight bracket, beating out competitors from Brussels and Baumholder. His victory continues an undefeated season for him.
“I think that I did pretty well … but there’s still definitely a lot I need to work on, like my coaches are always helping me like tweak things, work on things, just little things, just to get better like every day,” Adamson said.
George Rodriguez, a Lakenheath wrestling coach, estimates the team can “definitely” take seven weight classes at next week’s regionals and possibly more and five to six at the championships.
“We’re a solid program from 106 all the way to heavyweight,” Rodriguez said.
Other schools, however, have their own stars with the potential to take the Lancers and the other big schools out of the running.
Alconbury’s Nick Dufresne (182) continued his undefeated season by out maneuvering Baumholder’s Yorel Smalls.
“I’ve beaten everyone so far across Europe,” Dufresne, a junior, said about sectionals.
“No one’s really given me a challenge this year,” Dufresne said about the championship, though he did admit he has not wrestled against Patch. And Lakenheath hasn’t wrestled against several other schools either.
Baumholder is trying to rebuild its wrestling team. Bobby Dean, coach for the Buccaneers, said he was a little nervous about sectionals since his boys cannot afford to make mistakes if they want to advance.
“I have a really inexperienced team,” Dean said. “I have seen improvement in pretty much all of them, so this is kind of more of a building year.”
Twitter: @AMathisStripes
