BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Keystone Heights High School’s Steven Raab placed second, while Riley McGorty and Alyx Nichols also earned automatic region-level berths at the District 4-1A wrestling finals.
Atreyu Contes, who earned a fifth-place finish, will also advance to the Region 1 finals, which will be held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25, at Wewahitchka High School.
The top four in each weight class earned automatic berths, while fifth-place finishers put themselves in position to fill byes in their weight classes, if necessary.
Raab, who’ll be making his second region appearance, was the runner-up in the 220-pound class. He defeated Interlachen’s Shyheem Shivers and Union County’s Dylan Lane before falling to Tocoi Creek’s Jason Callahan in the championship match.
McGorty took fourth in the 120 class, defeating Bishop Snyder’s James Register before dropping a pair of matches to Union’s Ethan Hancock and Florida School for the Deaf and Blind’s Khayree Lofton.
Nichols, who qualified for region competition for the third straight year, placed fourth in the 170 class. After opening with a loss to Union’s Colin Hadlock, he defeated Florida School for the Deaf and Blind’s Anthony Rush and Interlachen’s Azarius Green before dropping another match to Hadlock.
Contes (106 class) dropped his first match to Baker County’s Brayden Martin. He then defeated Palatka’s Ramos Gabriel before losing to Beaches’ Oliver Hayden. Contes bounced back to defeat Baldwin’s Aaron Miller.
Like Contes, Henry Carhuayo (182) also placed fifth. Carhuayo dropped a pair of matches to Union’s Alexander Cortese and Baker’s Kristian Chancey before defeating Interlachen’s George Rodriguez.
Luke Graves (145) wrestled his way to the fifth-place match before losing to Florida School for the Deaf and Blind’s Jayden Rosario-Crespo. Prior to that match, Graves defeated Interlachen’s Brent Farley, lost to Beaches’ Grady Smith, defeated Baker’s Sebastian Overland and lost to Tocoi Creek’s Jeremiah Malarkey.
Rayne Pace (138), Marcellus Beem (152) and Talon Lybarger (160) also competed, with each going 0-2.
