Bishop grapplers begin wrestling season with front-loaded schedule
Ready or not, the high school wrestling season commences Dec. 2.
Knowing coach Paul Spence, the Bishop England grapplers will be ready.
“We wrestle Wando and Woodland on Dec. 2,” said Spence, who is in his 39th year as the coach of the Bishop grapplers. “On Dec. 3, we wrestle Lucy Beckham and Academic Magnet. We compete in the Aynor Duals the weekend of Dec. 4-5. That’s eight matches in the first week."
Those eight matches will test the Bishops' talent and mettle as Spence closes in on four decades at the school.
Spence is second to only Paul Runey in tenure among BE athletic coaches. (Runey, who coaches girls’ basketball, is in his 52nd year.) Spence has coached more than 150 wrestlers who reached the state playoffs. Eighteen wrestlers have been crowned state champs.
Spence isn’t all about winning and losing. He teaches life lessons, hoping the discipline and dedication the student-athletes employ on the mat carry over into adult life, including the corporate world and family life.
“We talk about mental toughness and taking responsibility,” said Spence, who was the BE teacher of the year for the 2024-25 academic year. "Wrestling is not all about winning. Everybody wants to win, but what it comes down to is being a good person and following your faith. You are not going to get to heaven by winning a state wrestling championship.”
The enrollment and the number of students who participate in wrestling put the Bishops at a disadvantage before a match even commences because they have to forfeit four or five weight classes. That can all but kill a team’s chances of winning a state team title.
Two wrestlers on the team have individual state wrestling experience: Finn Randall and Brody Tonon. Randall is a senior who is seeking his third trip to the state finals. He will compete in either the 157- or 165-pound classification. Tonon transferred from Philip Simmons High School and played for coach Logan Hall’s football team. He is making the transition from the gridiron to the mat and should round into form by mid-December. He was a state qualifier at 190 pounds for the Iron Horses.
The Bishops compete in Region 6-AAAA, which is arguably the toughest in the state. May River tops the SCmat.com preseason poll, holding down the No. 1 spot, while Beaufort checks in at No. 13. Bluffton is 16th, while Hilton Head is 20th. Colleton County, the other team in the region, has two wrestlers who reached the state tournament last winter.
The Bishops have other talented wrestlers in addition to their top two. They include Tommy Sheehan, Cooper Hardy, Logan Tronski, Luke Wohlfeil, Edwin Guzman, Vicente Robayo, and Aaron Traeger.
“I want my wrestlers to work hard,” Spence said. “Having a good work ethic will take you far in life. I want our wrestlers to win on the mat. And I want them to win in life.”
The Bishop wrestlers will compete in the Class AAAA Lower State the weekend of Feb. 13-14. The state meet will be held a week later at the Florence Civic Center.