Five Hornets Place at the "PIT"

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Burtonsville, Md. – Bo Shull placed third at 120 pounds and Daniel Walter was fourth at 138 in leading the Herndon wrestling team to a 13th place finish in the 18-team Panther Invitational Tournament at Paint Branch HS on Saturday, January 17th.

Herndon was without seven of its starters, who were out with illnesses and injuries.

“I felt like we competed hard the whole weekend,” HHS coach Mike Gonzales said. “I’m pretty confident that if we had all of our starters in the line-up, we would have placed in the top 5 in the team standings. The flu bug has been going around the wrestling room, and a couple of the guys have some lingering injuries. We decided it was best to give them the weekend off to get them feeling better for the last two weeks of the season where we wrestle our conference matches. It also gave some of our younger guys the opportunity to get some varsity experience under their belt.”

Junior Josh Poulson, Herndon’s 160 pound back-up, was able to place 6th, after going 3-3 in the tournament. His twin brother and starting 195 pounder, Jonah, went 3-2 for the tournament to grab 5th place honors.

Heavyweight sophomore Quadel Corbette placed fifth after going 3-2. Corbette has been one of Herndon’s most consistent wrestlers, placing at every tournament he has wrestled in this year.

“Quadel works really hard for a big guy. He is able to beat a lot of heavyweight wrestlers just through his conditioning alone. It seems like every one of his matches goes to triple overtime, and Quadel is able to outlast them.”

Senior captain Bo Shull was able to put together a good tournament, going 4-1 and placing 3rd at 120 pounds. Shull reached the semi-finals by defeating Ahmad Bangura of Potomac HS by a 13-2 major decision in the quarter finals. He lost to the eventual champ, Nick Dintino of St. Pauls, MD by 6-14 in the semis, but was able to rebound in the consolation bracket and reel off two straight victories to come back for 3rd place.

Junior Daniel Walter, Herndon’s back-up 138 pounder, placed at his second varsity tournament with a 4th place finish. After winning his first round match by pin, Walter was pinned in the quarter finals by Osbourn’s Trevor Jenkins. He then fought his way through the consolation bracket, winning three matches in a row to earn a spot in the consolation finals. The third place match was a rematch of the quarter finals, as Walter squared off with Osbourn’s Jenkins for the second time. This match was tightly contested, but Walter gave up the 2-4 decision to settle for fourth.

“We were disappointed that we didn’t have our full line-up competing, because we felt we would have done well. However, we’re happy with the fact that some of our back-ups can place at a varsity tournament. We’ve got some depth this year, which we haven’t had in previous years. We had to look at the big picture and what’s more important, and that is getting everyone healthy and competing in the conference matches,” head coach Mike Gonzales said about the decision to sit some of his starters.