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Days before the VHSL Group A wrestling tournament, Glenvar coach Kevin Clifford said that he felt that four or five teams would have a shot at the team championship and believed his Highlanders squad was one of the contenders.

Turns out, he was right.

Really right.

Glenvar locked up the team championship before the finals even started at Salem Civic Center on Saturday and still had three wrestlers with a shot at individual titles.

It's the second Group A championship in three years for the Highlanders.

"At this point, it's all about the individual," Clifford said. "That's all that really matters, and I told the kids that before. It's about them.

"It's not about the team, it's not about anything else. This is their moment. Take it and seize it and enjoy it, savor it."

Glenvar certainly seized the tournament, along with a few moments. But, more importantly, they seized a championship trophy with a team score of 123.

"We've had a solid tournament, Clifford said. "You always have kids that just, your heart gets ripped out [because they] had a bad tournament [and] some kids surprise you."

The Highlanders experienced both ends of that spectrum but in the end, it was all about teamwork.

"I just felt like probably, this year more than any year that I've been coaching and when we've competed for state titles, this is a team effort because we we're really pretty solid," Clifford said. "We didn't have one kid when we came in this season saying, 'We know this kid's a for-sure thing,' this year we didn't have that and the kids just really kept working."

And they worked through Region C, an incredibly tough region in Group A.

Of the three finalists that remained, Jason Ayers headlined for Glenvar, winning the 135-pound division in a 6-0 decision over Grayson County's Richard Pugh.

Alex Asimakopoulos lost to Rural Retreat's Kyle Testerman, 3-2, in the third overtime period at 215 and Kahlil Carazo dropped an 8-7 decision to Arcadia's Kyle Binder at 103.

Ayers admitted that knowing that his team had clinched the title enabled him to relax a little bit in his match.

"Oh yeah, it was great," he said. "I knew if I wouldn't have won state that we had a team title and it just relieved a lot of stress."

On his match, Ayers described it equally as cool as he wrestled it.

"I wasn't too surprised," he said. "He put up a good match but I just took advantage of opportunities, got the points, came out on top."

Thanks to the efforts of the eight Glenvar wrestlers that qualified, Ayers got both.

As for the team scores, Strasburg came in second with 100 points, Madison County placed third with 91, Castlewood took fourth with 86.5 and Rural Retreat nabbed fifth with 83.

Galax finished in seventh place with 69 and Radford took ninth with 62.5. In addition to Ayers and Testerman, Timesland had winners in Galax's Edu Rojas at 119, Radford's Julian Minter at 145 and fellow Bobcat J Clark at 160.

But the day clearly belonged to Glenvar.

"It's nice to be able to come out and reclaim a state title for the school," Clifford said.

So what' next for Clifford, who's also the football coach, and the rest of the team?

If they also play football for their coach, he's got some plans.

"Weight room's on Monday," he said. "We wanna get our football program to a point where we're competing at a high level.

"It's never a dull moment but this is what I chose to do. I love what I do and I wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world."

I don't think anyone else on the team would have either on Saturday.