Several newspaper articles below capture the significance of this match:
Eagles cruise to State
Warriors nab Upper State crown
West-Oak faces Chapin for the state wrestling championship
Moment of truth
Perfection! - West-Oak caps unbeaten run
Class 3a wrestling: West-Oak 31, Chapin 27
Warrior seniors leave wrestling legacy
2011 3A State Duals Final (boxscore at link) - West-Oak 31, Chapin 27

Some interesting trivia from this match:
1. West-Oak won its first State Duals Title in 2011 and has now rattled off 6 titles in the last 13 years.
2. In this Elite Eight coverage count down, this is the only match that ended with a Tech Fall in the final weight class, sealing the come from behind win.
3. Where are they now? Chapin's Chase Owens (140 lbs) is the head wrestling coach (last 3 seasons) at Lexington High School.
4. Where are they now? Chapin's Nate Polly (135 lbs) is running some of the largest wrestling tournaments in S.C. on FloWrestling, involved in this venture with his dad Todd Polly.
5. Can anyone find Adam Duncan in the photo?

Several comments as we wrap up today:
1. the Top 8 in this SCMAT series will not define all of the Greatest State Duals Finals, in fact we just scratch the surface. Some of the most memorable matches I've watched are not on this list. This series has morphed through applying different criteria, to be a bit more objective than subjective.

2. the rankings of the Top 8 have flip-flopped for several weeks, especially as I read all the newspaper articles. For the matches I was not able to attend, I found myself immersed in the reading, wishing I had made the Final. The rankings of the Top 8 in this series will continue to be a wrestling match in my head for a long time.

3. as I pondered the "criteria" for this article series, I concluded yesterday that the stories out of this Elite Eight have been like watching a walk-off home run in the World Series. The first reference to walk-off came in a July 30, 1988, story in the Gannett News Service: "In Dennis Eckersley's colorful vocabulary, a walk-off piece is a home run that wins the game and the pitcher walks off the mound." Eckersley is a Hall of Fame pitcher remembered for throwing a famous walk-off home run to Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series. Only two World Series have "ended with a walk-off home run" - in 1960 with Bill Mazeroski (Pittsburgh) against the Yankees and in 1993 with Joe Carter (Toronto) against the Phillies. Carter's home run in 1993 however, was the only time in Major League Baseball history that a team hit a walk-off home run while trailing in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the World Series.

4. we have six (6) Joe Carter moments in all our State Duals Finals and we've seen two of them so far; Marion's Dilan Gillard and West-Oak's Bill Sexton.

This nine-part series will continue in the next week with #6 on our list of the Greatest State Duals Finals.

If you notice a correction, addition or just want to comment to these historical articles, please send a reply to scmat@hotmail.com

thanks,

Mark Buford