Bradley Central's P.J. Adams looks to referee Mike Craft while wrestling River Henry of McCallie Thursday at Bradley Central in Cleveland.CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- The next time Bradley Central wrestles at home, some enterprising individual may have a recording of the Marine Corps hymn on standby.
A future Marine rose to the occasion Thursday and provided the rescue as the Bears rallied to secure their second straight victory over McCallie and their fifth win in six meets this season, 33-30.
The wrestling Bears were down 30-27 going into the night's final match when the Marine enlistee, Corey Gatlin, knew his number was called. He responded with a first-period pin.
"I am so proud of that kid. He enlisted with the Marine Corps right before we left for the Archer Duals (last week) and he had a pretty good weekend, but he's happy with himself and feeling good," Bradley coach Ben Smith said. "He's come so far.
"He'd come out and get cut and he'd come out and get cut. He kept coming back, and last year he'd get beat in challenge matches and then find ways to avoid wrestling JV matches."
The Marine introduced to McCallie wasn't the same wrestler in whom the Bradley program has so much time invested -- or the one who finally decided what he wanted and who he could become.
"He looks like Tarzan but had wrestled like Jane," Smith said. "Then he'd wrestle four minutes like Tarzan, then two minutes like Jane and get pinned. I asked him tonight if he was ready for this. He said he was."
The house was rocking, and the mostly partial home crowd offered an ovation worthy of a Super Bowl champion's homecoming after his pin win.
Smith compared his team to that of McCallie in that each has been overlooked but is scratching to return to its division's elite.
While the match was a seesaw affair -- six lead changes accompanied by a pair of ties -- it wasn't necessarily of state-championship caliber. Yet neither Smith nor McCallie coach Mike Newman expected such.
"I thought there were some good matches," Newman said. "We knew we were strong where they were strong, and what we wanted was to let them go at it and see what happens. They're only going to get better. We wanted to see some tough competition before we go to Ohio and see some more tough teams."
McCallie leaves today for a duals tournament and will face defending state champs from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Bradley, meanwhile, is coming off a 4-1 weekend at the Archer Duals, where the Bears beat a defending state champion but then absorbed something of a beatdown by the nationally ranked hosts.
"People have put a lot of expectations on us, and we're pretty good down low (lower weights), but we have a lot to learn," Smith said. "We have to learn to win as a team, as 14 guys. We're a younger team and I was pleased to see our guys willing to fight back."
The best matchup of the night was at 126 pounds -- state champion Knox Fuller versus state champ James Westbrook. Using a tilt in the third period, McCallie's Westbrook rallied for a 3-2 victory.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.