Fort Mill advances to state wrestling finals with comeback victory against Rock Hill

Fort Mill advanced to the 5A state wrestling championship meet with a 36-28 victory over Rock Hill on Wednesday night.

But it wasn’t easy for the defending state champions.

Rock Hill took an early 18-3 lead behind two pins (160 pounds, 190 pounds) and two decisions (215, 285) within the first five matches.

However, Fort Mill’s Luke Van Beynum (106), Jacob Nally (113), and Lincoln Greene (120) secured pins in each of the next three matches to pull ahead 21-18.

“Sometimes a loss is a win if you’re not giving up those bonus points,” Fort Mill head coach Adam Marullo said. “Some of our bigger guys, although they might have lost the match, they did their job, kept it close, and that’s what we needed out of them.”

After a Rock Hill decision tied the score at 21, Fort Mill secured 12 points thanks to a pin by Logan Shope (132) and a forfeit by Rock Hill in the 138-pound class.

With three matches remaining, all Fort Mill needed was to win one more match to seal the deal, but Rock Hill had other plans.

Reid Whitesell (144) earned a decision in his match to secure three points for the Bearcats; in the following match, Brycen Thompson earned a major decision that netted four points.

Heading into the final match, Fort Mill led 33-28, and Marullo only had one goal in mind for that match.

“Don’t get a pin, don’t get a tech, don’t get DQ’ed, can’t give up a six-point win,” he said. “Don’t give up a six-point win, and if you don’t.. you’re going to be successful. And it comes down to a freshman right there, one of our freshmen, and he stepped up and did a great job for us, so very excited and proud of him.”

Fort Mill’s Broden Mitcherson ended up getting a decision in that match to earn the 36-28 victory.

Despite the tough loss, Rock Hill walked away feeling like it’s heading in the right direction.

The Bearcats didn’t advance past the first round in last year’s postseason and finished fourth in the region this year. They also lost to Fort Mill 50-21 when the two teams met on Jan. 17.

To finish the season as a state semifinalists and show the improvement they did are great signs for things to come.

“I just think we’ve done a lot of growing up over the last several weeks,” Rock Hill head coach Cain Beard said. “We came up here the first time, had a couple kids miss weight, took a couple losses we didn’t think we should take, and we’ve just gotten better and better over the last couple of weeks to make it to this point.”

“We started six freshmen and two sophomores on this year’s team, and for them to make this playoff push and push the defending state champs to ‘last match wins it,’ it just says a lot about them. We’re just looking to build with the new guys that we got coming in and all those that we got here now.”

Fort Mill will now advance to the state championship meet against a familiar foe: Summerville, the team that Fort Mill beat last year in the state finals.

Marullo said he was happy to get the win over a tough rival like Rock Hill, but he and his team are ready to start preparing for their final opponent of the season.

“It feels awesome,” Marullo said. “Very excited. Got a lot of work to do still, but we’re going to get after it tomorrow.”

The 5A state wrestling meet will be at Dreher High School on Saturday. The matches start at 5 p.m.

This story was originally published February 8, 2024 at 12:05 AM.