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Polk County’s wrestling team silently filed out of its mat room Wednesday evening.

At the end of the line stood head coach Thomas Hensley, weary and nearly teary.

“It hurts,” Hensley said. “It’s going to hurt for a long time, because I really wanted it for these kids.”

There was certainly no shame in how Polk County’s stay in the 1A Dual Team West Regional wrestling tourney came to an end, the Wolverines dropping a narrow 47-36 decision to Robbinsville in a third-round match at Polk.

The Black Knights went on to nearly upset top seed Mount Airy in the regional final, finally falling 38-27. That earned the Granite Bears a spot in Saturday’s state final, where they’ll face two-time defending state champion Uwharrie Charter.

The close final merely reinforced Polk County’s belief that it was a state championship contender. The Wolverines, who closed their season with a 35-6 record, very nearly had a chance to prove that.

Polk fell behind 29-12 in its match with Robbinsville, but twice rallied to within five points at 29-24 and 35-30 thanks to wins by Efrain Rivera, Amon Villarreal and Jaxtyn Virgil, who recorded a win by fall with four seconds remaining at 138.

Aiden Billings very nearly joined that group, coming within inches of pinning 2024 state runner-up Loxston Hooper in the first period of their match at 132 pounds. Hooper, though, held off Billings, then scored a fall later in the match.

Robbinsville took a 41-30 lead before Connor Ahlert, trailing for much of his match at 152 pounds, scored a sudden reversal and pinned Devin Hall with 18 seconds remaining. That brought Polk’s bench and fans to their collective feet and also cut the Knights’ lead to 41-36 with one match remaining.

Styler Blackwell took the mat for Polk in that finale at 165, and he led Luke Green for much of the encounter. But the Wolverines needed a pin for six points and a team win, so with just more than a minute remaining, Blackwell went for it, trying an all-or-nothing move that Green countered and eventually led to his winning the match instead.

“Styler, he would have won that match,” Hensley said. “What he was trying to do was get the pin, so I don’t want people to get confused by that. He’s winning the match easily, he’s trying to put him on his back so we can win the dual, because if he doesn’t, then we don’t win.”

Polk County wrestled without senior Jacob Ed, who missed the match with an injury. That left Donte Tingling as the only senior who started, and that fact plus the upcoming individual regional and state tournaments gave Hensley reason to look ahead with a smile.

“We’re going to be alright,” he said. “We’ve just got to get better in the offseason. We’ve got to get better in practice tomorrow”.

 

“I’m really excited for these guys. It’s the first deep playoff run this school has made since 2009, and that’s a credit to these kids. We’re going to keep grinding and keep getting better. We’ve got a lot of wrestling left to do, and the best wrestling Polk County is going to do is going to be the regional and the state tournament.”