By Eric Lusk
Sports Editor
elusk@elkintribune.com

Perry Lloyd has been around a lot of championship pageantry as an assistant coach with Elkin’s football program.

But few things, he says, compare to the state high school wrestling championships.

“They do it right,” Lloyd said. “They make it a big deal.”

The two-day event — one of the biggest prep wrestling tournaments in the southeastern United States — began this morning (Friday) at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem.

More than 600 grapplers from 1A , 2A, 3A and 4A schools will share the mats and the spotlight until champions are crowned in every weight class by Saturday night.

Aaron Rabin of Elkin, Austin Sloan and Matthew Walker of Starmount and Cesar Pena of Surry Central are part of the field for this year’s 1A/2A tournament.

Sloan will be returning to the state event for a second time after finishing just out of the medals (top six) last season. Rabin, Walker and Pena will make their first appearance.

“It’s really something to be proud of,” Starmount coach Ryan Crater said. “All the bad wrestlers have gone home. You’ve got 16 kids in each class, all wanting to win state titles. It just comes down to who wants it the most.”

Rabin and Sloan both finished as region runners-up at 160 pounds last weekend, Rabin in the West and Sloan in the Midwest.

Rabin is Elkin’s lone junior on a team full of sophomores and freshmen. The Elks’ lone senior, Brandon Cox, missed most of the season because of an injury. Rabin took a 19-6 record into this weekend’s finale.

“Aaron was truly the leader of my team,” Lloyd said. “He’s a hard-working kid and was real focused at regionals.

Lloyd said his standout junior nearly nabbed a region title. Rabin fell 9-8 in overtime against Tony Sciuva of Polk County.

“Aaron’s a third-year wrestler but he’s greatly improved this year and he’s getting better,” Lloyd said. “It’s as much mental as anything this time of year. It’s a war.”

Rabin came relatively late to the sport. He started wrestling in eighth grade and was glad to make the middle school team when trying out. He describes his wrestling style as more defensive in nature.

“I don’t pin people very easily,” he said. “I kind of like to go three periods. I’ve got to make them wrestle my match. That’s how I’ve got to win.”

Rabin and Sloan haven’t wrestled each other but could see each other this weekend if the brackets fall the right way.

Sloan is a veteran of the state wars, posting a 2-2 record a year ago at 145 pounds. He lost his opener, rebounded to win two consolation matches before being eliminated.

“They bring out the top six (on Saturday night at state). They call it the parade of champions,” Sloan said. “I missed that by one round last year. I’m kind of mad about that. At least I’ve got another year to go at it.”

Sloan brought a 23-5 record into the state tournament. Crater said he didn’t know much about Sloan’s first-round opponent but is familiar with probable second-roe foe, Mideast champ Daniel Hopper of McMichael. Hopper, a senior, was 36-7 going into the weekend.

“Austin’s weight class is pretty stacked,” Crater said.

The most stacked weight class of all, at least as it relates to this area, could be 189 pounds, where Walker will wrestle.

Walker, North Surry’s Tommy McMillan and Wilkes Central’s Vincent Beam have waged a number of battles against each other all winter. The trio from the Mountain Valley 2A Conference finished in the top four at the Midwest Regional last weekend, with McMillan winning and Walker outdueling Beam — the defending state champ — twice on his way to third place.

Walker led McMillan 6-3 during the regional semifinals before giving up vital points in the final seconds of the second period. He ended up losing the match 8-6, so painfully close to making the championship round.

While a lot of the pre-tournament talk centered around McMillan (conference and region champ) and Beam (defending state champ), Crater believes Walker has the ability to unseat his two biggest local rivals on the state’s biggest stage.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out,” Crater said. “In my opinion, it’s going to be who catches the break at the right time. That’s how close those guys are.”

Walker opened his state tournament against Cody Carpenter of 1A Robbinsville, who is 33-5. He’s in the opposite bracket of both McMillan and Beam. They could meet in the finals — or in an early consolation round if each loses.

“We’ve got to take it one match a time,” Crater said. “It’s not going to be a cakewalk to the finals. This weight class is loaded up.”

Walker was a conference champion in 2008 but was sick and missed the chance to qualify for state. He was all-conference on offense and defense for Starmount’s football team in the fall, a big part of the Rams’ drive to the state semifinals.

Starmount football coach Scott Johnson described Walker as a player whose “motor never stops.” Crater concurred.

“There is nothing fancy about Matt Walker,” Crater said. “But he is just going to get after it and get after it for three periods. He goes for six minutes non stop — six minutes of brutality.”

Pena, who finished fourth in the MVAC tournament and fourth at the Midwest Regional, will face a region champion in his first match, Joey Williams of Dixon. Pena’s no stranger to success this season, though, winning 42 matches for the conference runner-up Eagles.

Surry Central coach Stephen Priddy described Pena as a “fighter.”

“He doesn’t have a particular style,” Priddy said. “He likes to lock up with people but he can shoot. Overall he digs down and he knows what he wants to try to do and he goes after it.”

Central’s Austin Oakley (145 pounds) and Bobby Johnson (130 pounds) were just one match away from joining Pena in Winston-Salem. Priddy said even though he would have liked to take more than Pena to state, he is proud of his entire team for their performance this season.

“Anytime you get a chance to take a kid to the state tourney it’s an awesome experience,” Priddy said. “Theyve worked hard all year and for somebody like Cesar it’s a reward.”