By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Southwest Virginia and the New River Valley has been known for outstanding high school wrestling for a long, long time. Of course, Christiansburg leads the way not only as a power in the Commonwealth with 16 straight state championships but also as a top contender across the country. Through those many weekend trips, the Blue Demons have faced incredible competition including a school from Independence, West Virginia.
When Cliff Warden accepted the Christiansburg head coaching position earlier this year, he knew it would be tough on him to leave a program that he had found success at.
Warden had been the head coach at Independence High School in Coal City, West Virginia, for the past 10 years. Under Warden’s tenure, the Patriots have been state runner-up twice, and have won consecutive state championships for the past four years. He was named the 2015 NFHS Mideast Section Coach of the Year, four times West Virginia Coach of the Year and has coached 21 individual state champions.
He even took part of both the Independence and Christiansburg teams combined to a tournament earlier this year.
Warden also brought his son to Christiansburg who as a freshman put together his own successful run at Independence.
So, it was only natural that the two schools come up with a date for a dual meet. Friday, the two worlds collide with a meet in the Virginia Tech Cassell Coliseum at 5 p.m. Admission is free so what a better reason to watch two of the top wrestling programs in the country.
For the Greco wrestling dummies out there, here are a few tips to know when watching the competition with the most important being “advantage top” where one wrestler is in control of their opponent on the mat. The bottom wrestler in this case the one on the bottom can score via a escape or reversal.
A pin can also result from this position.
The rest of the action on the mat is pure strategy and how you setup your opponent to get into the above position. Yes, it is boring at time but the action goes pretty quick as an average match last less than 10 minutes sometimes less than five.
But once you attend a match, you will understand the wrestlers must maintain a certain weight to wrestle in each weight class and they must be both strong and flexible. It’s a sport that takes a lot of time to train for and can be enjoyed by almost any spectator.
I encourage you to attend Friday’s game and again, see two of the top programs in the region and country got at it.
