Chapel Hill High’s wrestling team completed its 2021-2022 season as the DAC-VII conference champion with a 21-5 record while qualifying for the state wrestling tournament.
The Tigers won their first match of the season against Northwood High School on November 11, 2021, winning with a final score of 48-28.
The team rode this momentum and went undefeated in conference competition, winning six matches with notable victories over Southern Alamance High School on December 1 and Jordan High School on December 8.
However, the match the team was most locked in for was its 72-9 blowout victory against East Chapel Hill High School on January 24; the match was preceded, Tiger wrestlers said, by taunting and bragging on social media by the Wildcat wrestlers.
“East thinks they are our rivals, and their players were talking constantly about how they were going to beat us this year,” senior Lucas Daley, who wrestled with the team since his freshman year, said. “I told our team, ‘East thinks they can compete with us. We need to show them that they are not on our level.’ Everyone was together on this goal.”
The team qualified for the NCHSAA state playoffs, where the Tigers fell in a first-round match to D.H. Conley 39-30 on January 31.
Three of the team’s wrestlers—Daley, junior Porter Brice and senior Auggie Gunning—also qualified for the individual state playoffs, which were held at the Greensboro Coliseum between February 18 and 20. Gunning placed fifth in the 170-pound weight class, and Daley, the second student in Chapel Hill High School history to qualify four times for the state tournament, placed in the top eight in the 126-pound weight class.
Brice, who will have a chance to compete again next season, said his goal is to become one of the top wrestlers in the state.
“I definitely made many improvements throughout the season, but they weren’t enough,” Brice said. “All of my losses this season were when I wrestled against one of the top-ranked wrestlers in the state. I think this season could have been better for me if I was smarter at states because, without a doubt, I could have been on the podium this year.”
Daley and Gunning also both placed second at the Tiger Holiday Classic, which was held on December 21 and 22, a state tournament held at Chapel Hill High School that involved over 30 North Carolina schools.
As the team captains, seniors Daley, Gunning, Jakob Maiwald, Diego Reveles and Dorian Olvera had to learn how to lead the team to victories, forgoing a strong group connection in a sport that’s mostly individually based.
“I had to show my teammates how fun wrestling can be,” Daley said. “Bus rides to tournaments helped us grow as a team, and we even had a week where we just played dodgeball.”
In their final seasons wrestling, the team’s seniors were able to see the result of the dedication they’ve shown for years.
“I like wrestling because I feel like I always get out what I put into it,” Maiwald, who wrestles in the 132-pound weight class, said. “It’s nice to work hard in practice and see it translate into doing well in competitions.”
Despite the season ending with a first-round exit in the state playoffs, Coach Robert Price is pleased with the developments his players made in and outside of matches.
“The best part of wrestling is watching the wrestlers grow as young people and learn to push themselves,” Price said. “We hope we are giving them skills that will help them in later life. Overall, we had a strong season.”
