Southern Wayne grapplers finish regular season on winning note

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on February 3, 2011 1:47 PM

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DUDLEY -- Southern Wayne earned a split in six contested individual matches, and claimed a 42-30 victory over South Johnston on the wrestling mat Wednesday evening.

It was the Eastern Carolina 3-A Conference regular-season finale for both teams.

The Saints' Ethan Brogden, a returning ECC champion, celebrated senior night with a second-period fall over the Trojans' Miguel Rivas at 160 pounds. Fellow senior Bumbi Le wrestled hard and was pinned with four seconds left in the opening period at 135 pounds.

Southern Wayne's Jamison Dove, a junior 152-pounder, and heavyweight Deonta Hayes pinned their respective opponents. Dove improved to 15-5 this season, while Hayes collected just his sixth win.

AJ Covington (140 pounds), Josh Maultsby (145), Brent Heath (103) and Travis Memmelaar (112) each drew a forfeit for the Saints.

"We approached this match with it meaning something," said Southern Wayne assistant coach Cianci Glaspie said. "They did pretty good, except for a couple of them who could have done a little better."

Jesse Hall (135), Austin Abney (189) and John Jeffress (215) each pinned their respective foe. Jeffress and the Saints' Devin Lee battled to a scoreless tie for the first two periods. Jeffress earned a third-period escape and eventually pinned Lee with 1.5 seconds left in their match.

Lee had two opportunities to score takedown points against Jeffress, but couldn't finish the move.

"He had problems locking onto his opponent, just couldn't get in," said Glaspie of Lee. "We kept telling him to lock up and take a shot. Both of them were scared to go in and take a chance."

The Saints (4-12 overall, 2-3 ECC) and Trojans (2-11, 1-4) return to action Saturday in the season-ending ECC Championships at Charles B. Aycock. Opening-round matches begin at 9:30 a.m.