Huntington – Beckley, Independence and Greenbrier West are within striking distance of the lead after the opening night at the state wrestling tournament inside the Mountain State Health Arena.
Beckley trails overall leader Parkersburg South by nine points in Class AAA, while Spring Mills and University are seven back of the Patriots.
Independence sits in fourth place in Class AA after Thursday night’s matches, 14 points behind first place Fairmont Sr.
Four-time defending champion Point Pleasant is in second place, four points behind the Polar Bears.
Greenbrier West in third place amongst the Class A schools a mere two points behind Cameron and Wirt County.
Eight Flying Eagles won their respective matches Thursday night including Garrett Johnson (106), Tyler Roark (126), J.J. Bailes (132), Troy Harris (138), Vance Neal (144), Ethan Osborne (157), Jay Jones (175) and Landon Jones (190).
Greenbrier East sent Will Godby (113), Kaden Stone (137) and Calvin Roberts (285) through to the quarterfinals, while Gage Truman (215) and Colton Naylor (285) from Oak Hill and Carter Meachum (190) from Princeton also advanced in the championship bracket.
Independence had seven of its 12 wrestlers advance to Friday’s quarterfinal round including Dillon Perdue (106), Caelyb Nichols (144), Judah Price (150), Jesse Adams (165), Colten Caron (175), Josh Hart (190) and Logan Isom (285).
Luke Kelly (103), Sailor McKinney (120), Caleb Burns (138) and Dalton Hanshew (190) from Nicholas County all kept their state championship hopes alive Thursday with first round wins.
A pair of Shady Spring wrestlers, Walker Furrow (113) and Kaden Helmer (157) also won their opening matches.
Tucker Lilly (120), Clayton Robinson (132), Moses Gray (144) and Cole Vandall (215) advanced to the next round with wins for Greenbrier West, as did Marcus Matney (285) from PikeView.
Wrestling continues Friday morning at 11:30 a.m. with championship quarterfinal action along with the the first and second rounds of the consolation brackets.
The semi-finals of the championship bracket, along with the third round consolation matches with start Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
