Longhorns rebound from Duals loss at St. Cloud Milton Winter Cousins tourney
For the fifth year — every year the tournament’s existed — Osceola High is headed back to the FHSAA State Duals Wrestling Championship.
The Kowboys defeated Palm Harbor, 48-30, in the Region 3A-3 Semifinals, before beat ing George Steinbrenner, 44-27, to advance to next weekend’s state championships.
The Kowboys, hosts of the state championships Friday and Saturday, will face Palmetto in the quarterfinal round Friday night at 6 p.m. If they are victorious, they most likely run into perennial state power South Dade in Saturday’s 11 a.m. semifinals.
OHS’ highest finish was a second place showing in 2020.
“We got a total team effort in both matches on Thursday,” Coach Jim Bird said of regionals. “We kind of knew which weight classes each team would win, but if this format, it’s the toss up matches that matter and our guys won enough of those to advance.”
As expected, Osceola’s trio of Anderson Heap, Cooper Haase and Gunner Holland won both their matches in dominating fashion. Osceola also got a pair of wins from Melvin Ewen, George Duncan, and Jomar Sanchez. In order to take advantage of matchups, Haase, Holland and Ewen wrestled in different weight classes during the event.
The key to Osceola’s victory was getting off to a quick start in both matches. The Kowboys won the first five matches in the semifinals to jumped out to a 28-0 lead over Palm Harbor and won six of the first seven against Steinbrenner in the finals to take a 34-3 lead.
On the other side of the bracket, the Harmony Longhorns came up short in their bid to reach the state tournament finals. After defeating Treasure Coast in the semifinals, the Longhorns fell to Fort Pierce Central in the 3A-5 finals. Harmony competed without its head coach Vic Lorenzano, whose mother passed away earlier in the week.
“From talking with Coach Grillo, he said we did a nice job against Treasure Coast but came out a little flat against Fort Pierce. Still, give Central the credit, they came out with some intensity and really took the match to us. We will learn from this setback and move on,” Lorenzano said.
Harmony got less than 12 hours of rest before sending a full squad to the Milton Winter Cousins Memorial Tournament at St. Cloud over the weekend. The tournament featured teams from five county schools, as well as state powers Winter Springs and South Dade.
At the end of the event, the Longhorns came up just short of the team title. Defending state champion South Dade, who was victorious in five weight classes, won the event with 304.5 points, Harmony (286.5) was second and Winter Springs (286.5) took third. Gateway (103.5) and St. Cloud (93.5) finished sixth and seventh.
Harmony placed two individuals on the top of the podium; J.C. McNichols ran his record to 30-0 this season with a win at 138 pounds and Caden Gayle (8-2) had an impressive run by pinning all five of his opponents to take the 285-pound title.
Longhorn grapplers Landon Davis (106), Carson Estrada (120), Rey Ortiz (126) and Nelson Toro (220) all made it to their respective championship matches to finish second.
Landon Trigueros won at 106 for Poinciana. Other top finishers for county schools included Gateway’s Taylyn Fask (106) and Aidan Cooper (195), who each took third place finishes; while St. Cloud’s Nathaniel Huron (120) took a fourth place finish.
After the duals regionals, Osceola sent seven wrestlers to the prestigious Escape the Rock Tournament in Pennsylvania this weekend. Long considered one of the top tournaments in the nation, Escape the Rock featured more than 35 state and national champions in the field.
Osceola’s Gunner Holland made it to the quarterfinals; in the round of eight, Holland would lose a heart-breaking 2-1 decision over Alex Poore (Caravel Academy, Pa.). Three other Osceola wrestlers — Heap, Haase and Duncan — made it to the round of 16. Heap reached the podium with an eighth place finish.