Announced - Our First Coach of the Year

Chesapeake-Anne Arundel coach Randy Curtin is a believer in the team concept, and his philosophy has worked especially well out of wrestling’s dual meet format.

"Looking back on the teams that I coached, I realize that we were very much a 'dual meet team' all of those years. What I mean by dual meet team is you coach in a way that you elevate all of the wrestlers on your team, from the first year JV wrestlers all the way up to the returning state placers," Curtin said.

"If your whole team is strong from 106-to-285, you are a good dual meet team as opposed to a 'tournament team' where you have three or four really strong wrestlers that will place high at states. I believe in being a dual meet team coach and attempting to strengthen every single wrestler on the roster."

Curtin's concept worked yet again during his 11th and final season as he guided the seventh-ranked Cougars to their second straight Class 3A state dual meet crown and their third since 2022, following that up a week later with their program's second consecutive and fifth overall Anne Arundel County Tournament title, including those in 1980, 2002 and 2022.

This year's Cougars squad finished with an overall record of 25-4 that included an 11-0 run in non-tournament regular-season dual meets. The Cougars routed 11th-ranked county rival South River, 46-25 in their Class 3A State Duals finals at North Point High School in Waldorf, having already defeated the Seahawks, 43-32, in an Anne Arundel County League Dual.

A week later at the county tournament, the Cougars crowned two-timers in ninth-ranked sophomore Quin Greenstreet (113) and 14th-ranked junior Rex Graves (144), had 15th-ranked senior Owen Collins (165) improve on his fourth-place finish of a year ago with his first title, and second-ranked sophomore Corey Brown (132) and ninth-ranked senior Gavin Lewis (215) earn their first county championships.

There were also county runners-up in 23rd-ranked senior Brayden Roberts (138), sophomore Carson Roberts (126), junior Dean Michael (190) and freshman Hunter Wargo (106), with third-place efforts from seniors Trevor Webb (157) and Collin Richardson (175) as the Cougars (265 points) overcame second-place South River (170).

Armed with a career record of 250-78, Curtin has been named one of Legacy Wrestling’s Coaches of The Year even as the 45-year-old has announced that this will be his last season as coach of the Cougars.

"When I was hired to be the head coach 11 years ago, I felt like God was orchestrating the events that led up to that. Similarly, starting this January, I felt God prompting me that my time was up, and that I had had a good run," Curtin said. "I feel like his hand was on me these last 11 years through the good and bad times. I plan on becoming more devoted to church and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes ministry, where they had taken a backseat during all of those wrestling seasons. Also, I plan on hiking more in the winter and visiting my kids in college."

Greenstreet and Brown continued on to finish first at their Class 4A-3A North Regional Tournaments as well as second and third respectively at the Class 4A-3A states. Lewis was second at regions and third at states, while both Graves and Collins were third at regions and third at states.

A transfer from second-ranked Mount St. Joseph, where he earned a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association title, Brown lost his state semifinal bout, 7-4, in overtime to top-ranked four-time state champion Elijah Collick of Stephen Decatur, who is committed to The University of Nebraska.

Brown ended the year at 23-1 with 15 pins and five technical falls, and Lewis year at 39-5 with 22 pins and four technical falls. Greenstreet finished the year with a record of 35-9 with nine pins and 12 technical falls, adding his second straight county and regional crowns and improving on his third-place finish at states a year earlier.

Graves ended the season with a record of 32-9 with 12 pins and seven technical falls, having finished second and sixth at states as a sophomore and third at counties and fourth at regions as a freshman. Collins's record on the year was 38-9 with 22 pins and four technical falls two years after finishing fourth at counties as a sophomore.

Curtin graduated from Hammond High in Howard County in 1998, when he became a 171-pound county champion and the Bears’ program swept titles in their county and Class 2A-1A South Region Tournaments as well as the Class 2A-1A state dual and state tournaments. Curtin placed third at regions before falling short at states to the eventual champion and third-place finishers.

A year ago, Curtin led the Cougars to the Class 3A state dual meet crown with a record of 38-0 after having clinched the county dual title with a record of 13-0.

"I believe in the importance of team chemistry. When all of the coaches are in sync with each other, and the wrestlers treat each other like close friends, it leads to a really harmonious season," Curtin said. "I also think that during a dual meet, the wrestlers feed off each other, and that can lead to momentum swings in our favor. I definitely saw this play out in multiple dual meets over the years."

Last season included Curtin coaching his son, senior Matthew Curtin, to a 175-pound county championship during a season in which the Cougars were unofficially Class 4A-3A state tournament champions, edging Einstein of Montgomery County, 79-78.5 according to Legacy Wrestling’s Billy B since the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association ceased scoring the state tournament in 2018.

The Cougars also won last year’s Class 3A dual crown, 31-30, dethroning two-time defending champion Linganore. In victory over Linganore, the Cougars regained the state dual crown for the first time since 2022, when they ran the table for the county dual meet and tournament titles along with the Class 3A state duals championship.

That 2022 squad posted an overall record of 36-5 that included a 12-0 mark against county rivals and also won the county tournament with 257 points.

"Some of my favorite memories are winning regional duals back in 2020 which was our first team title since I started coaching. Another was winning state duals for the first time in 2022 over Springbrook," Curtin said. "Their 2025 season was probably my favorite. For one thing, we went 38-0, and for another, I got to coach my son Matthew. I coached him as a sophomore and junior also, but this was his most successful season."

As a senior, Matthew Curtin earned an overtime fall in 6:19 to defeat Annapolis’ 16th-ranked Davis Ruhf, a returning county runner-up whose record slipped to 36-2. An earlier 9-5 loser to Ruhf,

Matthew trailed by as much as 6-1 before tying their match at 12 and sending it into the extra session, and his triumph paced the Cougars to a county record 259 points as they dethroned South River (214.5 points) for their program’s fourth county tournament crown.

"When Matthew won counties last year, I was so incredibly proud of him. Not only because of how hard he worked to get the title, but also because he had some tough wrestlers in his bracket. I was such a proud Dad," Randy Curtin said. "The fact that Matthew picked up a pin in overtime was sweet icing on the cake. In fact, those two bonus points put our team score ahead of the 2022 team score [257 points] in the county tournament.”

Randy Curtin has coached 25 county champions, 12 regional title winners and crowned a pair of individual Class 4A-3A state tournament winners in 2022 with senior Listorti brothers Chase (145) and Victor (182). The Listorti siblings’ father, Tony, is an assistant to Curtin and an alumnus of Chesapeake who placed fourth at states after winning county and regional titles as a senior in 1982.

Curtin has coached five state finalists overall, with Greenstreet, Owen Schmidt (2022) and Xander Dodd (2024) all being runner-up among the 21 wrestlers who have finished sixth or higher at states during his tenure.

In January 2022, Curtin also oversaw the Cougars’ wrestling room being renamed in honor of late alumnus Matthew Tobey Eveleth, a four-time Class 4A-3A state finalist and three-time champion. The youngest of three siblings, all of whom were state title winners for the Cougars, Eveleth was 37 when he died of pancreatic cancer in July 2021 as the most accomplished wrestler in the history of Chesapeake High.

"I had the privilege of getting to know the Eveleth family over the last five years. They are pillars in the Maryland wrestling community and it has been my privilege to get to know them," Curtin said. "Having the night where we named the wrestling room the Matt Eveleth wrestling room and giving speeches in his honor before we wrestled Crofton, that made for a very memorable night."

Older brother, Brian Eveleth, was a one-time champion in 1991, and Jeff, a two-time title winner, the latter being a senior teammate with Matt on the Cougars’ 2000 championship squad. Matt earned three state titles in four championship berths, leading the Cougars to state tournament crowns as a sophomore and again as a senior in 2002.

“As someone deeply tied to the history of the Chesapeake program, it’s been incredible to watch what has been accomplished by coach Randy Curtin. Watching him lead Chesapeake to another state championship and to the level where it has become a perennial powerhouse has been very impressive,” Brian Eveleth said.

“But what means just as much to me is the way that coach Curtin has embraced the history and the spirit of the program. Naming the wrestling room after my brother, Matt, who I had the honor of coaching at Chesapeake, was a gesture that has meant the world to me and my family.”

Randy Curtin's Legacy (Courtesy of Assistant Coach Tony Listorti)

TEAM TITLES

County Championships

2022 Duals

2022 Tournament

2024 Duals

2025 Duals

2025 Tournament

2026 Duals

2026 Tournament

Regional Championships

2020 Duals

2022 Duals

2025 Duals

2026 Duals

State Championships

2022 Duals

2022 Tournament

2025 Duals

2025 Tournament

2026 Duals

Individual state champions

2022 Victor Listorti

2022 Chase Listorti

Individual County champions

2017 Tyler Valencia

2019 Victor Listorti

2020 Victor Listorti

2020 Chase Listorti

2020 Dean Lauman

2022 Victor Listorti

2022 Chase Listorti

2022 Dylan Ritter

2022 Owen Schmidt

2022 Dylan Lewis

2023 Dylan Ritter

2023 Dawson Hoover

2023 Delmar White

2024 Michael Greenstreet

2024 Xander Dodd

2025 Quinn Greenstreet

2025 Carson Roberts

2025 Rex Graves

2025 Matt Curtin

2025 Xander Dodd

2026 Quinn Greenstreet

2026 Cory Brown

2026 Rex Graves

2026 Owen Collins

2026 Gavin Lewis

Regional champions

2020 Victor Listorti

2020 Chase Listorti

2022 Victor Listorti

2022 Chase Listorti

2022 Owen Schmidt

2022 Colin Lewis

2022 Dylan Lewis

2023 Braydon Ambrose

2023 Xander Dodd

2025 Quinn Greenstreet

2026 Quinn Greenstreet

2026 Cory Brown