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By Wayne Catan
February 2005

Blair Academy Wins 25th Consecutive National Prep Title

Seven Champions Crowned: Taylor, Gitomer, Shanaman, Medina, Galante, Frey and the Unstoppable Travis Blasco All Gold Medal Winners

Total Team Effort Helps Blair Reach Watermark Moment and Seal Its #1 Ranking in the USA for the Fifth Year In-A-Row

When the 70th Annual National Prep Tournament commenced inside Lehigh University’s Stabler Arena, few pundits, fans or journalists thought that powerful Blair Academy would “NOT” win its 25th title in a row. There were, however, a couple of coaches from Dallas, Texas who wanted a say in that matter. Those two coaches, also Olympic gold medalists — Kenny Monday and Kendall Cross, brought a tough Bishop Lynch team to Bethlehem (from Dallas) with one thought in mind — to win. Why not — Cross and Monday are NCAA champions and Olympic champions…winning is what they do.

Not so fast.  They don’t win all the time.  

Blair Academy owns this tournament and Blair’s first-place total 396.5 pts. to Bishop Lynch’s second-place 203.5 point total supports this fact.  The National Prep Wrestling Championships belongs to Blair Academy…for 25 years.  Maryland’s Mt. Saint Joseph’s finished 3rd with 173.5 pts., and Germantown Academy placed 4th with 152.0 pts.  Blair was also awarded the Sportsmanship Award for its well….good sportsmanship.

Blair’s first champion was Ross Gitomer; this kid wrestled Iowa-style as he beat a tough Luke Silver of Bishop Lynch, 5-3. Gitomer used two beautifully-executed single leg attacks for his victory at 119 lbs. Gitomer is ranked #7 in the USA.   Rollie Peterkin lost in his finals match to #1 ranked Ben Ashmore of Bishop Lynch, 6-0. Peterkin got caught in a cradle in the first period and fought valiantly throughout the match. Rollie’s loss didn’t side-track Gitomer; Ross wanted comeuppance for Rollie and got it.     

Max Shanaman, who has been improving all season, beat a tough Johnny Koepp of Bishop Lynch 10-2. Max almost came away with a pin as he had his opponent on his back in the waning seconds.

“There were several intriguing match-ups that I liked going into the finals and those were at 112 lbs., 135 lbs., 160 lbs. and 189 lbs.  We won three out of four of those and that’s key. This showed that we were prepared and had the ability to succeed in a finals match of a big tournament,” said Jeff Buxton, Blair Head Coach. “In addition, Shanaman didn’t come in as a favorite but defeated a kid who beat him earlier in the year. This shows that he did all the right things this season and that hard works has a pay-off.”

Adam Frey – the #1 ranked 130-pounder in the USA – had a perfunctory 12-3 victory over Germantown’s Brett McCurdy to win the 130-pound title.  Frey manhandled McCurdy with his bruising style of “smash-em-up’ wrestling. Then came the spoiler—Travis Blasco. Like he did all season, Travis Blasco won. This time he defeated three-time champion Mike Rowe of DeMatha 4-3 to become a three-time National Prep Champion. Rowe came into the 2005 event as a three-time champion and went home a three-time champion. Travis Blasco rained on his parade like he has done all year. Now, Travis has three titles and will look for his fourth in-a-row next season.  

Eric Medina ran through his bracket at 145 lbs. and won his finals match over Bishop O’Connell’s Kris Park 10-6.  Mike Galante capped-off a fine career at Blair by defeating Mt. St. Joe’s Mack Lewnes 6-3 at 160 lbs.

Then came the “Team Thespian” Hudson Taylor. Taylor put on a show in the finals by pouncing nationally-ranked Dennis Drury of Germantown Academy 11-1. Drury has the distinction of defeating Patrick Bond, who has defeated Taylor twice this year.  Look for Taylor on the podium at the NCAA Championships; he will compete for the Univ. of Maryland.  This kid (Taylor) is wiry, funky and has sound technique.  We all saw that in the finals.  

In other finals matches, Jim Powers dropped a 2-1 decision to Justin Wren of Bishop Lynch in the heavyweight finals and Tyler Thurgood got caught in a headlock in his finally at 152 lbs.  Both wrestlers went home with silver medals. Mario Mason had a strong 3rd place showing at 140 lbs. while Kyle Manley quieted some his critics by placing 4th at 215 lbs.; Rob Brackup had a nice showing at 103 lbs. by placing 5th.  

“I sound like a broken record, but it indeed was…a total team effort” Buxton added. “And I am proud of that.”   

Please direct all questions and comments to buxtoj@blair.edu.