History lives on! Clover wrestling heads to Upper State title after win over Northwestern
Clover’s historic season lives on.
The Blue Eagles, thanks to three pins to open the contest and clutch performances down the stretch, notched a gutsy 37-26 win over York County foe Northwestern High School on Monday night. The third-round South Carolina playoff win at home means that the Blue Eagles will travel to Hillcrest on Wednesday night — and be one win away from the program’s first 5A Upper State title and its first state championship appearance.
“This is great for Clover High School,” said Clover head coach Mike Fitzgerald, who started the Blue Eagle wrestling program 19 seasons ago. “I mean, at the end of the day, it’s Clover’s program, it’s not my program. I’m just a steward here guiding it. I love it for these guys. I love it for this community. I just love it for the opportunity that we get.
“And now it’s one step further. We’ll relish that. We’ll take on whoever we got.”
The Blue Eagles entered Monday’s match an accomplished group already: They’d won a second-consecutive (and second-ever) region title. They’d made it to the third round of the 5A state playoffs, the deepest run they’ve ever made.
But they didn’t rest on their laurels.
Clover started Monday’s match with three tone-setting wins. Yannis Charles, a leader and junior for a deep Clover team, started the match with a pin at the 145-pound weight division. Teammates Michael Tomko (152) and Wilton Grice (160) followed Charles up with pins of their own to extend the lead to 18-0.
Northwestern, though, slowly pulled the game back into its reach. First came Northwestern’s Kamarien Barnette (170) with a pin. Then, after Clover’s Kaevon Gardner earned a win by decision, Northwestern’s Noah Lee (195) and Isaac McLellon (220) bested their opponents to make it 22-13.
The match stayed close the rest of the way: Clover’s Jakaevien Thompson at 220 won by pin fall. Then Northwestern’s JP Snipes (106) won by pin, too — doing so to give his team life and a real comeback possibility. 28-19.
Northwestern’s Christopher Wentz (113) followed that up with a win by decision, and then Northwestern’s sturdy sophomore Corey Dye (120) came back in his third period and notched a huge win to make the match score 28-26.
But those were the last points Clover would relinquish.
Soon — after a Jaden Sikorski win at 126, a match-sealing win by Carson Enix at 132 and then a final Enoch Long win at 138 — it was over: The Blue Eagles were moving on.
“This year, I’ve watched these kids put blood, sweat and tears into the mat, just fight and fight and fight,” Charles told The Herald, adding, “We’ve been making history for the past two years. And it’s just absolutely amazing.”
Northwestern head coach Ryan Whitmore told The Herald post-match that he was proud of his team for how it fought all season. The first-year head coach, who’d made a name as an assistant at Rock Hill for over a decade, was able to put the third-round and season-ending loss into perspective no matter how clearly it hurt.
“I’ve got a tremendous group of character-kids in this room,” Whitmore said. “They made it unbelievably easy to come in as a first-year. But I’ve stressed from day one that we’re building a family approach and building a program. We didn’t want to build a team that was going to have success and then (leave). We want to build a program.
“We want to be here from now on. And that started with the senior leadership. They were tremendous. And we’re young. We are really young. And we’re not going anywhere.”
Clover will travel to Hillcrest on Wednesday, a function of an SCHSL rule that states the same two teams cannot play in the same location two years in a row. Hillcrest has won three consecutive state championships.
Wednesday poses another chance to extend a special season for Clover.
Another chance, that is, at more history.
Said Fitzgerald with a big smile: “I have more pride about people seeing Clover and talking about Clover than anything else.”
Three other area teams are eliminated
All of the other teams in The Herald’s coverage area were eliminated in the third round of competition Monday night.
The Catawba Ridge Copperheads, who won the Region 3-4A title and advanced to the postseason for the first time in their three year history, dropped a 67-4 decision to Lugoff-Elgin.
The Indian Land Warriors, who were the runners-up in Region 3-4A, lost to six-time defending state champion Eastside by a score of 54-18.
The Chester Cyclones, who were the champions of Region 4-3A, lost to Belton-Honea Path 40-30.
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 11:34 PM.
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