Unfinished business

Local programs’ collective haul for the 2008-09 high school wrestling season was substantial: 22 area placers, the same number of state qualifiers, eight state medalists, top three finishes at the Area 7-4A traditional tournament for Murray County and Northwest Whitfield and a sweep of the area traditional and duals team titles by Dalton, which was also fourth at the Class 4A state traditional and second at 4A state duals.

Not bad at all.

But the area’s coaches and wrestlers know that days from now — if not already — that season will be as good as forgotten as it gives way to a new one. Except as motivation to build upon those accomplishments or take care of unfinished business, last season’s accolades will have little value anymore. That leaves local teams eager to get started on a new quest for the 2009-10 season, which will be under way for some by this weekend.

Here’s a first look at what this year might hold for Dalton, Murray County, North Murray, Northwest and Southeast Whitfield:

Dalton

Although the Catamounts swept the area titles and earned high finishes at both state events last season, Dalton coach Charles Mitchell believes his program still isn’t recognized well enough outside of Northwest Georgia — because when he looks at the rankings of teams and wrestlers as he prepares for his fourth season leading the Cats, he doesn’t see much mention of Dalton.

No matter what they’ve accomplished in their recent turnaround, the Cats are still underdogs, Mitchell said.

“People don’t expect us to be any good and that’s fine with me,” said Mitchell, whose team will open its season the first week of December. “We’re going into it to get better every week. Our goal is to get back down to state and finish off what we did last year. I don’t care who we’ve got on the team, we’re going to get after it.”

That’s going to require overcoming some inexperience this season, though, because graduation hit the Cats hard. While they had four state medalists last season, best among local schools, three of them graduated and the other, senior Henry Torres — the two-time Daily Citizen All-Area selection went 78-6 and finished fourth at state in the 125-pound weight class in 2008-09 — won’t be back before January because of academic ineligibility.

“We’re young,” Mitchell said. “I looked at my list and, my goodness, we’ve got about two or three seniors, maybe one or two juniors and the rest are just freshmen and sophomores. Nine to 10 weight classes will be underclassmen, so we’ll definitely have some freshmen starting and getting after it.”

Setting an example for those young Cats will be seniors Christian Washington, a two-time all-area selection who won more than 50 matches last season and will wrestle either 119 or 125, and Henson Toland, a 189-pounder who just missed qualifying for state sectionals as a junior. But an even better example might come from sophomore Reinaldo Torres, who went 63-21 last season as a freshman 130-pounder.

“If he can keep that passion he had last year and translate that to the postseason,” Mitchell said, “I believe he can win a state championship.”

Murray

Murray County has a nice core of experience to serve as a foundation for its lineup, but Chris Thornbury — who as he readies for his 19th season in Chatsworth is by far the area’s longest tenured wrestling coach — is wise enough to give that advantage some context so long as the Indians are competing in Area 7-4A.

“I’m real excited, because we’ve got some really good wrestlers,” he said. “Any other year, any other area, I might be beating my chest. But our area is so tough and there’s so many good quality wrestlers, you’ve got to be on your game. These are good programs year in and year out.”

Leading the way for the Indians are 2008-09 all-area picks Dalton Lane (145), Kolby Youell (152-160), David Thornbury (171-189) and Zac Dills (189-215), along with D.J. Winters (215-285), a senior who qualified for state last season as a first-year wrestler, and junior Josh Webb (112), who advanced to state sectionals last season. Thornbury also has high expectations for senior Angel Langley, a 285-pounder who’s wrestling for the first time in several years but could help the Indians fill out a tough-to-top heavy half of the lineup.

But Thornbury knows from top to bottom, the lineup still needs some work. He’s adjusting to having fewer wrestlers in the room than in past seasons because of the opening of North Murray, which has cut in half the number of underclassmen available.

Yet he still likes the options at hand.

“We’ve got enough good wrestlers,” Thornbury said. “We just need to get them separated into the right weight classes.”

That will take time as the Indians follow the state’s prescribed weight management program, but among the more inexperienced wrestlers, Thornbury also needs to see who best gives the Indians a chance to compete in the postseason — which really isn’t that far away, considering area duals are set for Jan. 8-9.

“That’s why we’re wrestling the schedule we’re wrestling,” said Thornbury, whose Indians open with a trip to the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe Duals on Saturday. “We’ll get them experience and it’s going to be against really good folks. We’ll try to improve every week.”

North Murray

Wrestling is one of the few sports in which this first-year school is competing on a varsity level right away, but the Mountaineers have an experienced coach, a handful of team members with varsity experience and a sport in which the gap on inexperience can be closed more quickly than some others.

All of that works in favor of Larry Cornelius, who was an assistant at Murray County the past two seasons before being named North Murray’s first coach — he recently finished leading the football team to a 5-4-1 record in its first season — this past spring. He also spent two years as the head coach after reviving wrestling at his high school alma mater, Cambridge Springs (Pa.), and was the head coach for one year at Randolph-Clay, where he took a wrestler to the state meet for the first time in the South Georgia school’s history.

His coaching style would seem to be suited to a program where, he estimates, about half of the team hadn’t stepped on the mat before coming out this year.

“I’m a very vanilla person when it comes to wrestling,” Cornelius said. “I don’t believe you need to do anything fancy ... your basic double leg, single leg, nothing flashy. You don’t get style points in wrestling.”

The blank slate that first-year wrestlers provide means Cornelius doesn’t have to break bad habits and the experienced wrestlers he does have come from a program where Cornelius worked and success has been the rule.

“We’ve got a nice little core of sophomores who wrestled last year at Murray,” Cornelius said. “I look for them to be leaders this year.”

Seth Stanton (135), Jackie Abernathy (145), Tas Brown (152) and Austin Carter (189) all lettered at Murray County in 2008-09, the coach said.

Despite having only freshmen and sophomores available to him, Cornelius expects to field a full lineup when the Mountaineers open at 5 p.m. Friday at Bagley Middle against North Paulding and Ringgold. The Mountaineers will compete in Area 6-3A this season and Cornelius doesn’t want his wrestlers to hold back on postseason expectations.

“I think we have just as good a shot as anyone else,” he said.

Northwest

The Bruins have been among the top-level teams in their area for several years running, but that doesn’t mean they’re beyond evaluating themselves in an effort to make sure they don’t start heading in the wrong direction.

With that in mind, by the end of last season Northwest coach Allen Tucker was already considering what needed refinement. He set goals for improving his wrestlers’ skills in the neutral position and from bottom, as well as increasing the intensity of their offseason and in-season training, but decreasing the number of overall matches to keep them fresh for the end of the schedule.

“We’re working to get good on our feet,” said Tucker, whose Bruins open their seventh season under his direction on Nov. 28 at the Heritage-Catoosa Duals. “We want to be a little more aggressive, because we were horrible in our stance last season.”

Tucker was able to set up a more comprehensive offseason workout program than before as well and had a good turnout in the weight room. He’s also made a point of setting clear standards for practices this season, such as outlining time goals based on weight class.

The standard for results in the postseason were already clear.

“We want to wrestle for championships at area and state,” Tucker said. “Every year when we start, that’s our goal. We want to be competitive and we want to be recognized. We get invited to some tough tournaments because they want good teams there and we like that.”

The Bruins have just five seniors among more than 60 wrestlers on the team, but a big junior class will keep the balance from turning completely toward underclassmen. Key returning starters include state title hopeful Josh Lewis (160) — an all-area selection last season as a junior, when he finished third at state — Russell Royal (112), Andrew Bennett (119-125) and Adam Selby (285).

One concern for Tucker is a glut of wrestlers at a couple of weight classes, including 160, where Lewis is joined by as many as four others with enough talent to start for many schools.

“If we spread out right, we’re going to have a solid team,” Tucker said. “I won’t say we’re full of outstanding wrestlers, but we won’t be too weak in any weight classes.”

Southeast

Four names jump off the Southeast roster immediately, and for good reason — seniors Nick Didonato (140-145), Andy Pichardo (145-152), Tanner Phipps (160-171) and Cristian Perez (285) all understand what it takes to make it to state because they’ve all been there before.

For third-year Raiders coach Neil Nichols, it’s just one more reason he’s glad to have them setting the example in the practice room.

“I’ll lean heavily on those four,” said Nichols, who also serves as the athletic director at Valley Point Middle. “They do a lot of my teaching for me, they did when we worked on reviewing stuff, and they’ll get practice going until I get there. They’ve doing that since they were sophomores. It’s almost like having four extra coaches.”

All four also earned honorable mention on the all-area team last season, when Didonato, Pichardo and Perez all qualified for state and Pichardo came a win shy of placing. Phipps qualified for state as a sophomore and just missed advancing to the state sectionals last season.

While the foursome will serve as a good base for building a lineup, Nichols knows it will take solid performances from others to make the Raiders a real threat in Area 6-3A.

“It’s got to be the toughest area in the state,” he said. “You’ve got LaFayette, Heritage, Ringgold — a down year for them is finishing fourth in the area — and LFO’s always tough, we battled back and forth with them all year last year. Then you’ve got Carrollton, which came up and finished third in duals last year.

“There’s a lot of quality kids coming back. But if we can get out of our area, I think we stand a good chance against anybody else in the state.”

Nichols believes he has some “quality wrestlers” as well. But, as he pointed out, they’re freshmen. Because the first time around a varsity schedule can be tough for anyone, the coach is counting on the more experienced Raiders to keep everyone else focused over the next few weeks.

“As a team, we’ve got to stay behind each other,” Nichols said. “We’ll just keep working hard. They’ve been killing themselves at practice the last week and a half and some kids have fallen by the wayside, but we’ve got a lot of quality kids who are battling. If they keep doing that, I think we’ll be OK.”

Sports

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

Dalton title hopes tempered by youth

Site Map

Contact Us