On January the 18th, the AMHS wrestling team competed in the Regional Championships at Hanahan High School, facing four rival teams. The Raptors defeated every opponent to claim the Region title in a round-robin competition (each team played every other team). In their first match, Academic Magnet crushed Bishop England by a fifty-point margin, winning 62-12 and carrying almost every weight class. Next, AMHS faced the hosting team, Hanahan, in the match expected to determine the overall 1st place winner. Magnet defeated Hanahan by six points, 42-36. In an upset victory, Waccamaw also defeated Hanahan, leaving only the Raptors and the Waccamaw Warriors in contention for the Regional Championship.

After a short break, Academic Magnet narrowly beat Waccamaw 37-36 in a tiebreak, becoming Region Champions. The Raptors wrapped up their night with a resounding win against Georgetown, 66-12. Five AMHS wrestlers won all their individual matches Friday night: Sean Healy, Toby Sizemore, Jonathan Lemon, Eli Beall, and Shabih Jafri. The team will face Ashley Ridge, Stall, and Cross High Schools on Wednesday night in their final regular season matches and will host Aynor and Edisto High Schools on Saturday morning for the first round of Lower States.

A note about the scoring: Each match against a team usually consists of fourteen individual matches: one for each weight class, ranging from a minimum of 106 pounds to a maximum of 285 pounds. Each match lasts for three periods of two minutes each, unless one wrestler pins the other and ends the match. Wrestlers score points according to the moves they execute, receiving between 2 points for takedowns (one wrestler is taken down to the mat), 2 points for reversals (one “taken-down” wrestler switches positions), 1 point for escapes (one wrestler gets up from the mat), and 2-3 points for near-falls (the wrestler has part of their back on the mat but is not pinned). A pin ends the match. Additional penalty points can also be awarded. For the team scores found above, the scoring works differently. A win by any amount of points (without a pin) secures 3 points for a team. A victory by 7-14 points wins a team 4 points. Wins by 15 or more, called “technical falls,” earn a team 5 points, and a pin or forfeit counts for 6 points. Tiebreaks are decided by the total number of wins accrued by each team in the match. In the case of the AMHS vs. Waccamaw match, for example, Magnet won seven matches to six.