Red Bank's Robert Perry (bottom) lifts Sale Creek's Dylan Lamar high in the air during a takedown in their 182-pound bout Friday night in the Region 2-A/AA wrestling tournament. Perry, who won on an injury, was one of 14 Lion wrestlers to advance to Saturday morning's semi-final round at Hixson Middle School.
photo by Dennis Norwood
High school wrestling coaches are always looking for perfection and Red Bank's Shane Turner almost got it Friday night in the opening day of the Region 2-A/AA tournament at Hixson Middle School.
The Lions advanced all 14 of their wrestlers to Saturday morning's championship semifinal round and lead the 14-team field with 52 points.
Hixson advanced 10 to the semis and hold second place with 39 points while Notre Dame is third with 28. East Ridge and Central round out the top five teams with 24 and 19 points, respectively.
The rest of the team scores have Whitwell sixth with 18, Boyd-Buchanan seventh with 16, Signal Mountain eighth with 15 and Sequatchie County and Chattanooga Christian tied for ninth with 11. Tyner is 11th with 9.5 and Howard 12th with 9. Brainerd and Sale Creek failed to score.
Friday's matches were over in a hurry as there were only 11 matches in the round of 16 before the quarterfinals. There were 34 pins in the quarters, in addition to 14 byes, four regular decisions, three major decisions and one technical fall.
There were no major upsets as all of the first and second-seeded wrestlers advanced with no problems.
But in a tournament where the number of state qualifiers count more than team standings, Red Bank looks like a giant locomotive rolling on down the tracks, picking up more momentum with each passing match.
Turner was pretty happy about getting his kids home for a solid night's sleep, but he was just as pleased when all 14 of his guys advanced, including nine of 10 who wrestled with the maximum bonus points following pins.
Freshman Jackson Hash had to go the distance before beating Notre Dame's Daniel Hodges by a 5-4 decision, but that may have been a question mark for Turner and he was thrilled with the results.
"We got all 14 in the semifinals and that was the plan and we got bonus points in all but one. Jackson Hash is a freshman and for him to advance to that round is huge for us. I have no idea what the team score is, but if we keep doing what we're supposed to do, we'll win this tournament," the energetic Lion leader suggested.
"We all know the important round is tomorrow morning, but I think we're in pretty good shape at this point. We had a good day today," he concluded.
While Red Bank is currently in first place and looking to stay there, defending champ Hixson is second. Wildcat coach Garrick Hall echoed similar feelings to what Turner said.
"I'm not worried about the team standings at this point. I just want all of my guys to go to the state next week and that's our number-one goal. We came out and wrestled hard today and that was important. And we'll all healthy, so that's good too," he expressed.
Zack Gee, Blake Reichel, Gabe McDuffie and Devon Suddeth all advanced with byes for Red Bank while Gage Evans (120), Trent Comeaux (126), Jonah Bird (132), Cody Slatton (138), Kaine Kell (152), David Johnson (170), Robert Perry (182), Devin Crawl (195) and Anthony Ottinger (285) all advanced with pins.
Hixson almost maxed out in the quarterfinal round with seven pins in the eight matches wrestled.
Rylie Hart and Jacob Newman both advanced with byes while Jonas Shackleford had a major decision at 138.
Getting pins for the Wildcats were Jordan Lewis at 120, Konner Zeigler at 126, Isaac Yates at 132, Landon Goforth at 145, Mason Smelser at 170, Dylan Bargerstock at 182 and Guillano Palacio at 285.
Notre Dame's five semifinalists include Cade Holloway at 106, Grant Speer at 113, Camden Dickens at 120, Luke Mullin at 126 and Ned Warwick at 132.
Signal Mountain's five include Isaac Tate at 106, Daniel Dawson at 138, Hunt Drennan at 145, Christian White at 152 and Seth Petarra at 182.
Boyd-Buchanan's four semifinalists include Scott Weaver at 113, Zane Williams at 160, Kell Stott at 195 and Will Watkins at 220 while East Ridge's four include Kashawn Cosey at 120, Logan McDonald at 132, Darian Smith at 170 and Christian Castro at 285.
Tyner's four include Chaysen Patrick at 152, Kevin Cortes at 195, Deontae Tyson at 220 and Keith Thomas at 285 while Central will have Isaac Coffman at 138, Alonzo Heyward at 152 and Brian Sledge at 195.
Whitwell's trio includes Avery Shrum at 160, Daniel Mikel at 170 and William Carter at 182.
Chattanooga Christian's two include Justin Wheeler at 145 and Michael Nelson at 220, while Sequatchie County has Jay Brock at 126 and Howard has Niejel Billingsley at 160.
Saturday's action begins with the championship semifinals at 9:30 with consolations to follow. The championship and consolation finals are tentatively set to begin around 3 p.m.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)
Hixson's Martin Smelcer (rear) works to gain control over his opponent, Thomas Martin of Notre Dame. Smelcer won the 170-pound bout by a fall at 2:51.
photo by Dennis Norwood