Chatham's 'Fantastic Four' leads the way on wrestling mat

The matches are more competitive throughout the entire roster and fewer weight classes are being forfeited.

Those are two of the biggest changes for Chatham wrestling in the past few seasons, allowing its standout wrestlers to become more focused on making themselves better by willing their teammates to get better.

“Ever since my freshman year, which the team that I was with then was very small, we’ve come a long way,” senior Michael Farmer said. “We’ve had a bunch of new guys come through and it’s been a lot of work picking them up just as well as myself. I feel that we have succeeded a lot. I love the direction that our sport is going.”

Chatham enters its district tournament — consisting of Dogwood District schools Chatham and Appomattox, and James River District schools Amelia, Nottoway, Randolph-Henry and Cumberland — at 9 a.m. today at Cumberland High School with an optimism that it can compete for a team title, but also have several of its wrestlers continue onward to the Group A state tournament.

The Cavaliers have four wrestlers with 29 victories or more and all are considered serious threats to advance far into the postseason — seniors Mark Fitzgerald (35-1, 160 pounds) and Michael Farmer (29-6, 132 pounds), and juniors Marcus Clements (29-5, 138 pounds) and Jonathan McKenzie (29-7, 145 pounds).

“The four wrestlers I have, have been incredibly disciplined, incredibly dedicated,” Chatham coach Brent Walton said. “I call it my gauntlet — I have four kids in a row that just get the whole team going. I have those four leading by example. … It makes my job easier when I have four kids like that.”

While Farmer is the undoubted leader of the group because of his experiences and trips to the Group A state tournament, Clements has shown the most potential in his first two seasons.

The football star has placed sixth in state in both is freshman and sophomore seasons. To better his chances of possibly placing high, he’s tried to adapt a more technical approach to add to his strength.

“Compared to last year, I want to be more technical because I’ve been relying on my strength most of the time,” Clements said. “I’ve known when to use my strength and when not to — use my strength in the right places and be more aggressive and technical at the same time.”

The only other wrestler on Chatham’s roster who could compare to Clements’ strength is Fitzgerald, who has rolled through the season aside from a loss to Martinsville’s Herman Jones.

Fitzgerald, who is aiming to wrestle in college, advanced to the state tournament last season.

“He’s one of the physically toughest kids I’ve ever seen. One of strongest kids I’ve ever seen,” Walton said of Fitzgerald. “But with that strength, he’s got incredible agility and speed.”

While the trio of Farmer, Clements and Fitzgerald has made the necessary advancements, McKenzie has been the biggest hit for the Cavaliers. After a subpar sophomore season, McKenzie found a way to overcome the mental aspect of the matches to pick up the 29 victories this season.

“Last year, I didn’t have the greatest season. I learned a lot from the past year. Hitting the wrestling room, constant non-stop, non-stop training that really helped me with my cardio and my technique this year,” McKenzie said. “Mentally, I always got down in a match but I don’t get down. I would shut down and I would mentally lose it and I basically lost the match myself. This year I’ve grown on the mat.”

Farmer has been a staple in the state tournament since he was a freshman and has evolved into a more polished wrestler over his high school career. He has tasted the rewards of advancing to the final weekend of wrestling at the high school level, but he’s hoping to achieve more than just advancing to Salem.

“I just want to go out with a bang,” Farmer said. “I want to leave everything on the mat. I don’t want to have anything left on me. I don’t want to have to be in 10 years saying, ‘I could have done better.’ I want to leave everything out there and do the best I can.”