Cox, Grassfield and Poquoson combined to make Saturday one of the best and most historic in the history of Hampton Roads high school wrestling. Their three team state titles made Hampton Roads the Capital of Virginia High School Wrestling.

Three team state championships had been done just once before in the region. Bethel (Group AAA), Tabb (AA) and Poquoson (A) — schools located several minutes from each other — swept all of the available Virginia High School League titles in 1977.

But the three winners Saturday each achieved impressive firsts of their own. That was most literally true for Class 6 winner Grassfield, a first-time team champ.

Cox owns six state championship with its latest, but it had never won one in its home gymnasium. It did so Saturday after stepping up, with extraordinary efficiency, to host the Class 5 event after it was postponed a week and relocated (as were all six state tournaments) because of snow.

With 14 state championships dating back to 1973, Poquoson is an old hat at hoisting state championship trophies. For all of its history, though, the Islanders, who added four individual state gold medals to scores already, had never advanced nine wrestlers to individual championship bouts.

The thing is, the trio of state champions could be right back in the same place a year from now.

Cox coach Dalton head might have spoken for all three programs when he said, “We’re building and we’re only getting better.”

Head said 152-pound champion Karl Ludwig “has been a machine all season,” and that 190-pound champ Rudy Wagner “is a stone-cold killer.” Adam Dougherty (106 pounds) and Izaque Topaz (285) joined them as finalists, while Carson Miller (120), Caleb Rafal (132), and Grayson Cahill (144) finished third.

But Head felt the key to the Falcons’ decisive victory — they scored 212 points to outdistance co-runners-up Great Bridge and Kellam by 50 points — was that so many others succeeded in wrestle-backs after losing. Seth Pringle (113), Landon Cahill (138), Vicente Granada (157) and James Cornelius (215) all won their fifth-place matches as the Falcons placed 11 of their 12 wrestlers.

“We won because of our teamwork effort, not just because of our ringers,” Head said.

With the middle school wrestlers coached by his twin brother, Geoff, and the youth instructed by Dave Cahill, Head expects Cox to reload with quality wrestlers for years to come. They will be lucky to experience a night as memorable as Saturday.

“It was unfortunate we didn’t get to have the big state tournament at the big venue,” he said, referring to the Virginia Beach Sports Center, originally scheduled site of the Classes 4-6 state tournaments. “The silver lining is we got to host it at Cox and we got to win in our own building.

“It was a bit more intimate situation and a more intense environment. When you win a state championship, you can see your mom and dad’s face — they’re not 100 yards away in a bleacher.

“It was a special night to be a Falcon.”

Grassfield had been solid enough historically before coach Patrick Shuler took over six years ago, but the team he inherited had only one state qualifier among just five returning starters. That made his goal of a state championship within three years a lofty one, especially since the Grizzlies had not even won a region title to that point and the youth program was almost non-existent.

Even a few years late, the Grizzlies’ emphatic run to the Class 6 crown in Salem’s gym on Saturday was impressive. Grassfield won with 192.5 points to outdistance second-place Chantilly (165 points), as 132-pounder Luca Schinelli and 285-pounder Christopher Funches stood atop the podium as state champs.

Schinelli avenged a loss to Landstown’s Elijah Phoutasen to win their final 7-0. Funches, who’s wrestled only two years, continued his rise with a decision victory.

But, like Cox and Poquoson, it was depth that carried the Grizzlies to the title as nine wrestlers placed in the top four. Simeon Barrett (144) and Nate Moore (165) lost in the finals; Nolan Mather (106), Leland Mendez (113), Nick Moore (157) and Chase Burns (215) were third; Brady Green (175) was fourth.

“(Funches) is the closest thing to a five-star stud, and he’s just getting there,” Shuler said. “But we have seven or eight guys who are almost there, and only one starter is a senior, so we’re well set up for the future.”

Like Cox, that includes a strong youth and middle school pipeline.

“The biggest thing we’ve done is build an addictive culture,” said Shuler, the son of Don Shuler, a National Hall of Fame inductee who coached at Brookville High in Lynchburg. “When kids come into the wrestling room, they love it, they’re bought in and they want to be part of what we’re doing because they know it’s special.”

The Islanders’ motto for this season was “There are levels to this.” After a near-miss at the team title a year ago, they reached the top one by blowing away three-time defending champion Strasburg (245.5-173 points) with four individual champion and five other finalists.

Two Islanders, Bryan Latta (144) and Reed Booth (150), repeated as champs, while Jared Goodson (132) three-peated. Kam Harrell (106) continued his progression from third-place as a freshman to second as a sophomore to state champ with the other three winning juniors.

“I call them our `Core Four,'” Poquoson coach Eric Decker said. “They are getting better year over year, and the levels we are talking about for them are beyond the state meet and contending nationally.

“But everyone is making progress. I never thought we would set a record for finalists, though I really didn’t know what the record was.”

The other finalists for the Islanders were Brayden Bunting (113), Logan Keese (120), Derek Kennedy (165), Nathaniel Quiroz (175) and Austin Conley (190). Third-place finisher Brayden Agnese — an All-Tidewater football player quickly learning wrestling — and all of the other nine save Conley are expected to return next year.

The Islanders will be heavy favorites to repeat as state champs, but Decker is just as excited about scheduling dual matches with the other area state champions and top teams. His reasoning: Why should all not capitalize on the tremendous competition underscored by the three state championships?

“Hopefully we can all wrestle each other in dual matches next season,” said Poquoson coach Eric Decker, adding Class 5 co-runners-up Great Bridge, a 21-time state champion, and Kellam should be in that mix. “The fact is we have the three- or four-best teams in the state, so we need to get together.

“We should do that for the fans and the sport of wrestling in this area as we work to keep those state championships in this area.”