Eagles Take Mat Crown Once Again

 (Zachary Harrison/PressBox Preps)

By: Keith Mills

Lane Clelland and Josh Fitch are about as different as two people can be. Clelland is 6-foot-5 and weighs 265 pounds while Fitch stands at just 5-foot-6 and weighs 135 pounds soaking wet.

Clelland lives in Reisterstown and has grown up in the imposing shadow of his older brother Lance, who went on to play football at Northwestern and is now coaching at Dartmouth. Fitch went to Parkville Middle School and began wrestling for the Golden Ring Junior program when he was 4 years old.

Clelland will play college football next year at Notre Dame. Fitch is headed to Lehigh, where he'll wrestle and is considering studying engineering.

Both have helped McDonogh's wrestling team emerge as Maryland’s top program. And both stood on the victory stand along with their Eagles teammates last Saturday as coach Pete Welch lifted the huge, sparkling gold trophy symbolic of their second Mount Mat Madness championship.

"Our guys have worked really hard," Welch said. "We have six seniors and five juniors and they've done a great job of setting the tone."

Welch went to Ridge High School in New Jersey and then the University of North Carolina. He took over the wrestling program at McDonogh 13 years ago and has built the Eagles into a regional powerhouse, the No. 1 team in Maryland and the No. 20 team nationally.

Clelland and Fitch are two of the six seniors who were among six McDonogh wrestlers to make the finals last Saturday night as the Eagles beat Wyoming Seminary of Pennsylvania, 236-234, at Catonsville Community College.

Fitch joins Rich Bosley and Bryn Holmes as one of school's best wrestlers ever. He'll go for his fourth straight MIAA championship next month after beating Colin Isenberg of Wyoming at 135 pounds to win his first Mount Mat title.

Clelland out-battled Jim Leonard of Mountain View High of Stafford, Va. to win his first varsity tournament title.

They were joined by sophomore Nick Schenk, who beat Simon Kitzis of Wyoming at 119 pounds.

Ben Levin, Kramer Whitelaw and Alex Pagnotta lost in the finals while Shane Milam finished third and Curtis Holmes fourth. Eric Filipowicz and Doug Schenk, Nick's 215-pound older brother, finished fifth.

"We've tried to do things the right way," Welch said. "We've got guys from all over the area, and they have really come together."

Whitelaw grew up in Sparrows Point and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the tournament, defeating nationally ranked Clay Gable of Dallastown before losing to Connor Black of Mountain View.

Pagnotta grew up in Howard County, arrived at McDonogh as an eighth grader and is 27-2 this year after winning four matches and losing in the finals to Vinnie Ranauto of Caravel Academy of Delaware.

Levin is a four-year starter for the Eagles. He lost to Nicky Gordon of Wyoming, who joined Jake Bohn of Mount St. Joseph as the only three-time Mount Mat winner.

Bohn was on hand to give out awards for tournament organizer Neil Adelberg, along with Kelly Ward, a former three-time All-American at Iowa State. Bohn and Ward have helped to make the tournament the best in-season wrestling event in the state.

Adelberg, the former coach at Mount St. Joe, spares no expense in putting on the event, which has attracted some of the best teams on the East Coast. He spent almost as much time receiving kudos from coaches and out-of-town parents as he did coordinating the awards ceremony.

"He's done a great job with this," said Ward, whose son Alex wrestled at Mount St. Joe and is now a freshman at Nebraska. "The competition is very good."

***

Ward is a wrestling icon in Maryland. Along with Olympic silver medalist Lloyd "Butch" Keaser, he is the state's most decorated wrestler. He grew up in Montgomery County and began wrestling when he was 10 at the Silver Spring Boys and Girls Club.

He went to high school at Blair Academy in New Jersey, one of the finest wrestling schools in the country. At Iowa State he was an All-American in 1977, '78 and '79 and was a member of the United States national team.

Now he lives in Edgewater in Anne Arundel County, helps coach his son Ben's team at South River High School and promotes the sport throughout the state.

"Mack Lewnes," Ward said when asked who the best high school wrestler he has seen since returning to Maryland after living in Iowa, Nebraska, New York and Los Angeles. "He could do it all."

Lewnes won four MIAA conference championships and two national prep titles at Mount St. Joe and is now a sophomore at Cornell University and a member of the U.S. national team pool. He was a high school teammate of Bohn, now a freshman at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, where he made the football team as a walk-on. Bohn won three MIAA championships and three Maryland Independent School championships and last year's 189-pound National Prep Championship.

His father, Vince Bohn, won a Maryland Scholastic Association championship in 1976 while his uncle, Mike Cavey, was an outstanding wrestler and football player at Mount St. Joe.

Frank Goodwin won the Gaels’ lone individual title at the Mount Mat Madness tournament, beating Kyle Johnson of Wyoming at 112 pounds. Tim Chase of Glenelg and Josh Asper of Hereford were other local winners.

But this night clearly belonged to the McDonogh Eagles, defending MIAA champs and now winners of the prestigious Mount Mat title for the second year in a row.

Issue 3.4: January 24, 2008