Southeast ends its region title drought; Falcons make history

As the crowd cleared from Benjamin “Buzz” Narbut Gymnasium and Southeast High School wrestlers posed for photos with their Class 1A-Region 3 championship trophy, a handful of the seniors who had helped the Seminoles win a region title for the first time since 1993 disappeared.

They had slipped out into a hallway adjacent to the gym. But it wasn’t until coach Nick Balde pulled his team together along one wall of bleachers while parents pulled out cameras and cell phones that the seniors returned.

Suddenly, their disappearing act made sense.

Darrien Grant, Jonathan Locke and Stephen Kelle each held a district championship trophy — one from this season, another from 2015 when they were sophomores and a third from 2014 when they were freshmen. Not long ago, the seniors set their sights on adding a new year to the relatively empty banner that honored past region championship teams, and Saturday they did.

“We had eight seniors this year and they all contributed and they all worked out really hard with everybody else,” said Balde, who is in his third season as the Seminoles’ head coach. “The five qualifiers we had — the thing that’s really cool is they’re all seniors. They all moved on.”

The Seminoles’ region team title was their first since 1993. The Class 1A-District 10 title Southeast won last week was its first since 2015. Balde, however, couldn’t recall the last time Southeast had three individual region champions, which Grant, Kelle and Alex Roldan accounted for.

It was a history-making two days for the Seminoles and Saint Stephen’s, which won its first individual region title and qualified its first wrestlers for the state tournament.

On their way to scoring the 131 1/2 points to edge Englewood Lemon Bay’s 124, the Seminoles enjoyed a bit of individual history of their own. Kelle, who won the 182-pound weight class, tied Ricky Almodovar’s school record for wins at 133.

“That was definitely something we were looking at,” Kelle said. “It feels good now that I tied him. Now I’ve got to keep winning them.”

Grant won his region championship by pin in the 220 weight class, and Roldan won his title at 138. Jonathan Locke and Chevaughn Rose rounded out Southeast’s qualifiers with fourth-place finishes at 160 and 285, respectively.

The top four in each weight class qualify for the Class 1A tournament, which begins Friday in Kissimmee and concludes Saturday.

The Falcons history came with a slew of firsts and an improbable fourth-place finish overall. Jake Ross, who last week gave Saint Stephen’s its first district champion, followed one historic performance with another, winning by injury default at 160 to give the Falcons their first region champion.

“I made it my goal to make it to state this year,” Ross said, “and I’m just happy I could make it there.”

Ross will be joined by three teammates Friday at Silver Spurs Arena as the school’s first four wrestlers to reach the state tournament. Alan Morano was the runner-up at 120, Parker Lansberg took third at 170 and Max Manning finished fourth at 132.

The 81 points Saint Stephen’s scored as a team were also noteworthy. The Falcons finished only six points behind Naples Lely for third. All three teams that finished ahead of Saint Stephen’s brought 11 wrestlers to the tournament. The Falcons had six.

“It’s really cool. We all started about the same time and we could just see each other progress,” Ross said. “It’s just really cool to all go to state together.”

Neither of Manatee County’s other two teams competing this weekend pushed any of their wrestlers through to state. Bradenton Christian, which finished 32nd with 13 points, went 0 for 3 and Bayshore, which finished 34th with six points, had its only grappler fall short.

This story was originally published February 25, 2017 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Southeast ends its region title drought; Falcons make history."