Laurel 022615 by The Gazette

SPORTS

GAMES GAZETTE.NET IS STAFFING

Final regular season basketball rankings, leaders. B-2

Posted online by 8 a.m. the following day. BASKETBALL: Can the Wise boys and Roosevelt girls defend their 4A state titles? The playoffs begin Friday. WRESTLING: Region tournaments, Friday-Saturday. SWIMMING: State championships in College Park, Friday and Tuesday.

Ready or not the playoffs are here Few clear-cut favorites emerge as boys basketball playoffs begin Friday n

ADAM GUTEKUNST STAFF WRITER

FILE PHOTO

Parkdale’s Nathaniel Forschner (bottom) won the 220-pound title match at the Prince George’s County wrestling tournament on Monday at Northwestern.

Parkdale crowned county champs, again Panthers top Bowie Monday to win weather-delayed tournament for fourth consecutive time

PRINCE J. GRIMES STAFF WRITER

When the first day of the Prince George’s County wrestling tournament at Northwestern High School wrapped up on Feb. 20, the three-time reigning county champion, Parkdale, trailed Bowie 163.5 to 162. But what was more telling than the fact that Parkdale was losing entering the final day on Monday, was the fact that the Panthers trimmed what was once a 35 point deficit to just 1.5 points. When the consolation semifinals began on Monday — postponed from Saturday due to snow — Parkdale continued building on its momentum, and by the time the championship matches began later that evening, the Panthers held a 36.5 point lead over the Bulldogs, a lead that proved to be insurmountable.

Despite just three finalists — two of which won individual titles — Parkdale prevailed to win its fourth consecutive county championship. “[We] came back, and consolations is what did it. We had a rough semifinal roundandroughquarterfinalround,butin consolations, those kids stepped up. Kids who I didn’t think were going to win pulled it out,” Parkdale coach Adam Forschner said about his young team. Parkdale also won a fourth consecutive north division title and was the only team whose entire lineup placed in the top 6. “It’s surreal. The beginning of the season, I didn’t think we would do any of this ... As the year went on, we saw what we had. So this is really good. This is exciting. [This title] probably means a lot more than the other ones because it was a lot more work.” Also making this title more special, Forschner said, was the fact that his son, sophomore Nathaniel Forschner, was one of the two Parkdale wrestlers to win individual county championships. In the 220-pound match, Nathaniel Forschner

won by decision over High Point’s Troy Hamilton. “It feels amazing, just because of all the hard work I put in,” Nathaniel Forschner said. “Just everything that we’ve been doing in practice — all the hard conditioning and drilling and being committed. It just shows how it pays off in the long run.” The other Parkdale wrestler to win was Rudolph Funn, who defeated Wise’s Chris Currence at 170. Funn said Parkdale’s recent success added pressure. “It really feels unreal. But I knew I was going to get it,” Funn said. “There’s a whole lot of pressure — on and off the mat. Even before the match, I was thinking about this match a week before, thinking about it all day, everyday, even while I’m doing my homework.” The runner-up Bulldogs also had two champions out of ﬁve ﬁnalists. At 113, Nate White defeated Oxon Hill’s Hanry Narbay by decision and at 106, Javan White dominated DuVal’s Mamadu Diallo in a major decision to earn his second county title. White was one of two wrestlers who won

his second consecutive county championship. The other was Oxon Hill’s Jahi Jones, who earned a technical fall over High Point’s Eric Tolson at 145. White said it was “very important” for him to defend his title. “I want states,” White said. “I got to win states.” Third-place Roosevelt, who finished 4.5 points behind Bowie, scored the most individual champions with four. High Point was a distant fourth place. Flowers, DuVal, Wise, Oxon Hill, Laurel, and Northwestern rounded out the top 10. Oxon Hill was awarded a trophy for winning the south division title. Clippers coach Lorenzo Johnson said its the first time Oxon Hill has won the title since 2009 and winning it in just the second year of his regime made it all the more special. “The whole month of January, we actually took [the team] to the trophy case and showed them [the last two times we won]. ‘This is what we’re fighting for these next two weeks,’” Johnson told his team. pgrimes@gazette.net

Making tacklers into grapplers n

Wrestling coaches turn to football players to help build programs BY PRINCE J. GRIMES STAFF WRITER

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Wise High School’s Dontrae Callaham (left) wrestles High Point’s Brandon Gonzalez at 126 pounds on Monday at Northwestern.

Maryland high school wrestling aﬁcionados can likely remember a time when Prince George’s County was a hotbed for some of the best wrestling in the state. From 1970 to 1984, a local team placed ﬁrst or second in the state tournament 14 times. Lau-

rel, High Point, Parkdale, Largo, Bowie and DuVal combined for 10 state championships. Since then, none have placed in the top 2 and only on seven occasions has a team ﬁnished in the top 4, with the latest being a fourthplace Douglass in 1996. Participation in the sport of wrestling isn’t what it once was in Prince George’s County, as evidenced at the latest county tournament, which wrapped up on Monday. Nine of the 19 participating school’s had less than eight wrestlers — a full lineup consists of 14 weight classes. Potomac, Fairmont Heights and

Douglass didn’t even have one wrestler to represent them. Some of the lack of numbers was due to injuries, poor grades and missing weight, but an overwhelming reason for the low numbers was simply due to a lack of interest in the sport across the board. Many of these teams have been under-manned for some time, coaches said, and when wrestlers do get injured, the depth isn’t there to replace them. The nature of wrestling is individual.

See GRAPPLERS, Page B-2

Oxon Hill’s standout wrestler just wants to have fun Senior 145-pounder hopes work ethic pays off with state title n

PRINCE J. GRIMES STAFF WRITER

Jahi Jones just wants to have fun. The Oxon Hill High School senior wrestler said he doesn’t want any media attention or accolades. And outside of a state championship, he just wants to enjoy himself this season. The truth is, Jones said, he’s a better wrestler when he’s having fun. When Jones convinc-

ingly defeated High Point’s Eric Tolson by technical fall in Monday’s 145-pound Prince George’s County championship match, he said he was just enjoying himself. And when Jones won his 100th career match in the semiﬁnals, he also was having fun. So, after claiming his second county title on Monday, Jones only had a few words for the media. “Seven more matches until I’m a state champion,” he said. “He’s strictly focused on what he’s going to do on the mat this year,” said Oxon Hill coach Lorenzo Johnson. “He comes in the room, he works his tail off. He’s wrestling with

us, as far as the coaches. He’s going to extra practices. He’s swimming. He’s at the YMCA. He’s doing everything that he possibly can. He really wants that state title this year.” On top of all that, Jones is focused on having more fun this year because he didn’t last year. He said he put so much pressure on himself that ultimately he became his own worst enemy. After winning last year’s county championship and entering the 4A/3A South Region tournament as the No. 1 seed, he placed ﬁfth and missed out on state qualiﬁcation by one

See OXON HILL, Page B-2

If it seems like the 2014-15 high school boys basketball season tipped off last night, it’s time to fast forward. Sure there were some great moments like Wise’s Mike Speight hitting a buzzerbeating 3-pointer to defeat Bowie, Largo’s Abdulai Bundu scoring 47 points and recording 14 rebounds against Douglass, Bowie’s upset of Washington Catholic Athletic Conference power St. John’s College and Eleanor Roosevelt’s Naji Marshall beating Wise with a buzzerbeating 3-pointer. But it’s time to move on to some single-elimination basketball. Playoff pairings were announced Tuesday afternoon, and while the record-based seeding makes the ﬁrst round matchups relatively less tantalizing than the random draw has in years past, there’s a much better chance of some Price George’s County powers playing in the later rounds. Here are teams you should keep an eye on in each of the four classiﬁcations:

4A Favorite: Eleanor Roosevelt (19-3) The Raiders once again are poised to make a run at yet another trip to College Park, as a stable of big guards makes Roosevelt tough to guard in both the half-court and in transition. It also would be hard to imagine the Raiders dropping another game at home. Contender: Northwestern (16-5) One advantage the Wildcats have over most of their opponents is their seniority. Coach Terrance Burke’s team starts four seniors and one junior in big man Saiquan Jamison. Northwestern’s issues have come in the ﬁnal quarter where they’ve struggled to put away lesser opponents. The Wildcats also don’t get much scoring production from their bench, magnifying the impact of any potential foul trouble. Darkhorse: Parkdale (11-10) The Panthers were in a bad place heading into the final stretch of the season, losing four straight. But midseason additions Kaine Wilson and Joseph Adedayo helped right the ship along with point guard Gregg Boyd, as Parkdale ﬁnished the season on a six-game win streak, including a Feb. 12 overtime upset of Roosevelt.

3A Team to watch: Crossland (17-4) The Cavaliers may be the deepest team in Prince George’s County, which certainly will serve them well in the postseason. Crossland’s ninth-leading scorer averages 4.4 points per game. A veteran core of guards that thrive in an up-and-down style of play could carry the Cavaliers deep into the playoffs.

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Oxon Hill High School senior wrestler Jahi Jones (back) craddles High Point’s Eric Tolson on Monday at Northwestern.

Favorite: Largo (19-3) If Abdulai Bundu is healthy — he sustained a hip injury in the season ﬁnale at Gwynn Park — there’s little argument against the Lions being not only the favorite in the 2A South Region, but a favorite to capture a state

See PLAYOFFS, Page B-2