Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
A different year, but the same story as Christiansburg High School took another Big Blue wrestling tournament title on Saturday. Christiansburg outdistanced Eastern View by 110 points 321.5 to 210, and kept the trophy that CHS officials paid for earlier in the week.
Christiansburg’s first-year coach Cliff Warden was very happy with his team’s performance.
“As far as our finish/performance, I think everyone wrestled really hard and the effort was there no doubt. It’s hard to complain about eight finalists with six champs and four more wrestling for third. But there is room for improvements in all our guys,” he said.
This is the fourth straight Big Blue championship for Christiansburg, who now prepares for the conference championships that will also be held on its home mat.
Marshall Keller and Xander Whitehurst each won their fourth straight individual title. Keller took the crown in the 138-pound class, and Whitehurst at 145 pounds.
Keller received the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler award.
Other individual winners for Christiansburg included: Nathan Warden (152), Erik Eva (182), Andy Smith (220) and Brandon Crowder (106).
Warden personally feels coaching careers should end when one becomes complacent. Although perfection is unattainable, he said that’s what his teams strive for.
Patrick Henry finished in third as a team, while Greenbrier East was fourth. Blacksburg finished in 14th place, Radford 19th and Auburn was 22nd.
Again, this was the last regular season event for most of the area schools.
