Mar 10, 2025
photo by: Jay W. Bennett
The Cameron Dragons’ Eli Tedrow has his hand raised after winning the state title at 157 pounds Saturday night inside Marshall Health Network Arena. Tedrow defeated Ripley senior Ethan Kay in the championship match.
HUNTINGTON — For the first time in three years the Cameron High School wrestling program is back on top of the Class A field.
Saturday night inside Marshall Health Network Arena the Dragons of first-year head coach Chad Burge watched his six-man team cap the season with a 126-72.5 state championship over runner-up Braxton County as Greenbrier West took third with 42 points while Tyler Consolidated tied East Hardy for fifth with 38.
Cameron 150-pound senior Slaton Pettit capped his 149-21 career mark with a state title against Braxton County’s Paxton Smith. Following a scoreless first, the Dragon got an escape and followed it up with a takedown en route to his 6-1 victory.
“The season went great this year,” admitted Pettit, who went 40-3 and was last year’s state runner-up at 138 after placing fifth at 106 as a freshman and third at 126 as a sophomore. “We got a lot of good guys in the wrestling room just working to make everybody better and we couldn’t ask for a better senior season.”
It was the third victory of the campaign for the Dragon against Smith, who was named the Most Outstanding Wrestler at the Little Kanawha Conference championships.
“I didn’t really have any doubts,” Pettit said. “I knew what I had to do and I came down here and got it done.”
Losing a year ago in the finals wasn’t something he wanted to happen, but the Dragon added “it kind of took the nerves of this year knowing that I’d already been there last year.”
“Finally, got it done this year. It’s real special. I always wanted to be a state champ and now it’s finally come true. It’s pretty awesome,” he said.
Cameron also had a chance for two other state crowns with 126-pound sophomore Braxton Birch and 157-pounder Eli Tedrow, who finished 47-5 last winter for Wheeling Central and placed runner-up at 157.
Birch, who had to use some blood time in his match against Keyser sophomore Jackson Swingle, allowed a first period takedown and suffered a 5-0 setback after finishing runner-up a year ago at 126.
The sophomore Tedrow, who had father and assistant coach Chet sitting in the chair next to coach Burge, took the lead for good against Ripley senior Ethan Kay with an edge of the mat takedown at 0:27 of the first. The Dragon never trailed and posted a 10-4 decision.
The Dragons were also aided in their state crown run by the trio of Marshall Crow (3rd, 138), Talen Brown (4th, 144) and Maverick Lilley (5th, 106). Crow picked up a 10-2 major decision versus Oak Glen’s Logan Graham in their consolation final while Lilley topped Golden Bear Jordan Tomisic, 3-0.
“They’ve worked really hard,” stressed coach Burge. “These last couple weeks since the regional they’ve improved every day, came down here heads on right and wrestled unreal. Bring six guys down here and score the points that we did, very, very proud of them. We’re confident in our guys and their abilities and what they can do. It’s the state finals, though, and you still got to go wrestle. There’s no gimmies in this sport so we have to come out and perform and they did. They did a good job.
“Nice job overall, just not in the finals. To bring six kids down here and place all of them on the boys side and then our one girl that we have Ava (Lemasters, 114), third place again, and she’s a junior. We’ll have her back next year. A young team. Slaton is our only senior. To taste that victory is sweet for him, I know, and he’s earned it. It’s been a long time coming. He’s a great kid and deserved it. He’s definitely earned it.”
Speaking of someone who earned it, that would be Wheeling Central junior 215-pounder Isaac Martin, who once again got the job done in the last match of the season as he defended his state title against Roane County’s Lane Watson, who won the 190-pound crown as a junior last season.
Martin got the only points he ended up needing via a takedown with 39 seconds left in the first and he emerged with a 5-2 victory as he didn’t give up an offensive point the entire tournament.
“I knew Lane was a past state champ at 190 so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” said Martin, who now was 143 career victories and is the all-time Maroon Knight wins leader. “I heard he was jumping up so I knew he was probably going to be my finals match. I tried to mentally prepare as much as I could, breathing, relaxing, drinking water.
“I think my conditioning really helped me that match. I really hope I can become the first three-timer. Also, I just broke the win record. It’s awesome. You work for things like these every year and the feeling is surreal. There’s no better feeling than winning the state tournament. I’ll tell you that right now.”
The Golden Bears of head man Josh Cornell placed third in the Class AA team race for the second straight year. Oak Glen, which had a pair of finalists, finished behind champ Point Pleasant (164.5) and runner-up Herbert Hoover (142) and ahead of fourth-place Williamstown (122) and fifth-place Ripley (115).
The first opportunity for the Golden Bears came at 144 with senior Hayden Lamb, but the only points of the match were scored by East Fairmont junior Blake Ringer via a reversal at 1:19 of the second. OGHS junior heavyweight Noah Schmidt allowed a pair of takedowns in the initial 63 seconds and suffered a 12-3 major decision setback to Herbert Hoover senior Connor Facemire.
Also placing from the Ohio Valley were Golden Bears Aiden Anderson (4th, 113), Wyatt Wolanski (5th, 132) and 190-pounder Greg Sauers, who won his consolation finals match. Weir’s Ben Bryan placed fifth at 175 while the Tyler Consolidated duo of Colsen Spragg (5th, 138) and Branson Winfrey (4th, 157) also found the podium.
In the girls state invitational, Silver Knight junior Eliana Winfrey capped a 32-1 campaign by jumping ahead of Buckhannon-Upshur freshman Lylah Ketterman 6-1 before earning the mat slapper in 5:29.
Tyler Consolidated also had a podium effort from Chloe Dutton (6th, 185).
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