VB’s Riley earns repeat as 6A heavyweight wrestling champion

All season, R.J. Riley knew he was going to be heavily favored to repeat his Arkansas 6A state heavyweight championship. He also went into the Arkansas State Wrestling Tournament last weekend as the top seed in the field. The Van Buren senior, though, didn’t pay attention to the hype. His focus was to just take care of business in each match. Riley was able to do just that, and as a result, he repeated his 285-pound weight class title Saturday at the Arkansas State Wrestling Tournament in Little Rock. In all four matches at state, Riley earned wins via pinfalls, including the 6A title match, when he pinned Southside senior Joseph Williams in exactly four minutes. ?(My mindset) was just to stay focused,” Riley, named the Times Record’s Athlete of the Week, said. “My sophomore year, I was the third seed and I went into state and got knocked out by an unseeded wrestler, so this year I was really focused; I wasn’t worried about what seed I was, I was more worried about getting the job done and focusing on my matches one at a time. “I didn’t really feel pressure. I knew that I was going to go after a state championship and I just had business to take care of really.” By repeating as state champion, Riley also became the first Pointer wrestler in the history of the program to do exactly that. There was another goal Riley accomplished at state: He was able to become Van Buren’s all-time wins leader with 144, eclipsing the previous record of 142.Riley finished his senior season with a record of 45-2, and both of his losses were to the same opponent, a wrestler from Class 5A Searcy, which meant Riley defeated all of his foes he faced at the 6A level. He also gave credit to Van Buren coach John Petree as well as Petree’s brother, Dakota Petree, who joined the Pointers as an assistant coach prior to the season. Riley especially credited Dakota Petree, who Riley calls “Coach P,” for making Riley an even better wrestler as a senior. “He was able in practice to drill with me and go through a lot of moves with me, just break everything down and show it to me,” Riley said. “That really helped me a lot. “I think I wrestled a lot better this year. Last year, I had a more limited kind of moves that I would do, kind of like an arsenal. This year, since coach P’s came over and having both of them there, it just really opened me up and I’ve learned a lot more stuff.” Riley added that he learned from both coaches to be able to wrestle with a much calmer demeanor. “When I get matches, I want to get it over quick, I want to go, go, go, go,” Riley said. “Even at state, coach (John) Petree was telling me, ‘You need to focus on the good and what’s going good and not focus on what’s going bad in the match, and you get hyper and start freaking out you know.’ “He said I just really needed to stay calm and I think that’s one thing that they’ve taught me, how to wrestle calm but wrestle effectively.” At state, Riley was able to win all four of his matches by pinning his opponents. His first took exactly 26 seconds. Then, Riley pinned his quarterfinal opponent in 2:56 and his semifinal foe in 2:46. That brought up Williams in the finals, someone Riley was very familiar with. “It was a crazy match; there was a lot building up to it,” Riley said. “Me and him wrestled my sophomore year, and he beat me and then I beat him. ... I just stayed quiet and focused on what I had to do.” Riley was finally able to get the championship pin using what he called his specialty move, the “snake,” putting his opponent in a front headlock and then twisting down towards the mat and rolling up the opponent in order to have a chance to get the pin. He also had a heavy wave of emotion on his side at the state tournament, as his grandfather, Bo Wiley, had passed away earlier in the week. “I found out that my grandpa had passed away from a heart attack, and so I had a goal of being a state champion; me and him had talked about it previously,” Riley said. “Then after he passed, that just really set it in my mind that I was going to do it for him, and so I had a lot of determination that week and I was really ready to wrestle.” Next month, Riley will be competing in a national tournament in Virginia Beach, Va. Last year at the event, he split four matches. But his wrestling career after that will likely be over, as once he graduates from high school, Riley plans to become a firefighter. He does end his career with the Pointers on a high note, winning back-to-back 6A state titles and becoming the program’s all-time leader in wins. “It was a big, big accomplishment for me and I was pretty happy about it,” Riley said. “It took a whole lot of hard work.”

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Van Buren High School Athletics

VB’S RILEY EARNS REPEAT AS 6A HEAVYWEIGHT WRESTLING CHAMPION

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 2/25/2020

PHOTO CREDIT: File Photo