Reconstruction of the Central Invitational wrestling tournament, which the host Purple Pounders won Saturday, is officially under way.
Coach John Lennon hopes to make the state's oldest invitational wrestling event a premier A/AA tournament.
"There's nothing like it right now where all the A/AA teams can get together and get a look at each other before the state tournament," Lennon said. "That's what we want to do here."
CENTRAL INVITATIONAL
Team Scores1. Central (Cen) 166, 2. East Hamilton (EH) 151, 3. Signal Mountain (SM) 107, 4. Boyd-Buchanan (BB) 89.5, 5. Christian Academy of Knoxville (CAK) 82.5, 6. Tullahoma (T) 62, 7. Tyner (Ty), 8. Union County (UC) 57.5, 9. Howard (How) 36, 10. Sale Creek (SC) 20.Championship Finals106--Isaac Tate (SM) pinned Roderick Bonds, 2:58; 113--Briar Potter (EH) pinned Scott Weaver (B), 1:59; 120--Jovahny Sanchez (T) pinned Grant Lundy, 1:46; 126--Bryson Lemons (Cen) dec. Matthew Meeks (Eh), 7-4; 132--Liam Golden (EH) dec. Isaac Coffman (Cen), 2-0; 138--Drew Locklear (EH) dec. Daniel Dawson, 13-4; 145--Alonzo Heyward (Cen) pinned Andrew Sturdivant (EH), 0:48; 152--Chaysen Patrick (Ty) pinned Niejel Billingsley (How), 3:41; 160--Xavier Norwood (Cen) dec. Phillip Nichols (CAK), 13-8; 170--Michael Long (CAK) tech. fall over Seth Petarra (SM), 4:42; 182--Cale Shelton (SM) pinned Chuck Sanders (EH), 4:31; 195--Cole Durbin (UC) dec. Deonta Tyson (Ty), 5-3; 220--John Zavracky (CAK) pinned Will Watkins (BB), 2:58; 285--Sam Stephenson (Cen) pinned John Sewell (BB), 1:54.Consolation Finals106--Austin Biddy (Cen) won by forfeit; 113--Clay Maynard (UC) tech. fall over Jimmy Herrera (Cen), 4:35; 120--Manuel Bernal (Cen) won by forfeit; 126--Jerry Myers (UC) pinned Jordan Sanchez (T), 5:40; 132--Hunt Drennan (SM) dec. Domanique Rahman (How), 13-9; 138--David Davis (UC) dec. Hank Warren (BB), 8-6; 145--Will Davis (SM) dec. Matthew McDonald (BB), 6-2 SV1; 152--Jay Coop (T) pinned Tyler Green (EH), 3:01; 160--Brandon Spurling (BB) pinned Juan Camacho (Ty), 4:50; 170--Skylar Sivley (Cen) pinned Kaleb Parcel (Ty), 0:59; 182-- Brian Sledge (Cen) pinned Coey Fox (SC), 3:24; 195--Calvin Conn (BB) pinned Jonathon Alson (Cen), 1:00; 220--Akil Hicks (T) pinned Ethan Logue (SM), 0:39; 285--James Vandersteeg (CAK) pinned Ethan Greenwood (EH), 2:03.
Lennon has plans to invite Alcoa, Pigeon Forge and possibly Greenback and East Literature and probably would like to include local competitors Hixson, Notre Dame, Red Bank and East Ridge.
The Central tournament, which once was considered among the elite invitationals in the state, now competes on the same weekend as the Brentwood and Father Ryan invitationals in Nashville, but those events are more for Class AAA and Division II-AA contenders.
"We have or are getting things in place to make this a strong tournament, and the biggest building block is the support we have from the parents," Lennon said. "We're starting something that's going to build, and we hope it will become an A/AA signature event. There isn't one out there right now."
Although he wound up losing a handful of teams for this tournament, he had enough to make for a competitive event.
His Pounders won with 166 points in the 10-team field. East Hamilton was second with 151.
"I'm not going to pretend this was the NCAA tournament or anything like that, but our kids performed well under pressure and when they had to," Lennon said.
"We have some young guys that are learning -- learning how to win -- and this event was good for those guys. They're coming along," said Hurricanes coach Ryan Cooper, who celebrated a new addition to the family (a daughter, Katie James) on Dec. 23. "Effort on the whole was good all day. There are always spots to fix, and there are a couple of spots we need to man up."
Signal Mountain was the only other team to break the century mark and finished third with 107 points. Improving Boyd-Buchanan was fourth with 89.5 points, and Christian Academy of Knoxville rounded out the top five with 82.5 points.
Individual champions were Central's Bryson Lemons (126), Alonzo Heyward (145), Xavier Norwood (160) and Sam Stephenson (285); East Hamilton's Briar Potter (113), Liam Golden (132) and Drew Locklear (138); CAK's Michael Long (170) and John Zavracky (220); Signal's Isaac Tate (106) and Cale Shelton (182); Tullahoma's Jovahny Sanchez (120); Tyner's Chaysen Patrick (152); and Union County's Cole Durbin (185).
East Hamilton's Potter, who was back on the mat Saturday for the first time in a month, received the tournament's outstanding wrestler award, and officials gave the "best match" honor to the 126-pound final between Central's Lemons and East Hamilton's Matthew Meeks. Lemons won 7-4.
Although it ended early, the most entertaining match of the finals came at 182 pounds, where defending A/AA state champion Shelton won by pin over East Hamilton's Chuck Sanders. While he ended the match at the 4:31 mark, Shelton had to rally from an early 4-0 deficit and was ahead only 13-10 before getting the pin.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at twitter.com/wardgossett.