The Region 4-AAA traditional wrestling championship was still up for grabs with two championship finals remaining.
It shouldn't have been. Between a disqualification and a fierce Cleveland comeback, state duals champion Bradley Central entered the final two matches up by 5.5 points and heavyweight Christopher Cash, a surprise finalist, still to wrestle.
Bradley won the tournament, but its narrow margin of victory would have been increased by at least seven points if not for 170-pound Henley Headrick's tournament disqualification. The junior had earned four team points, which were deducted, and then cost the team three more for flagrant misconduct (biting).
"Wrestling is an emotional sport, and he has been working on that," Bears coach Ben Smith said. "He's a good kid. I've known him since he was little, but, yeah, that hurt - his getting ejected. It cost us points today, and it cost us points we were counting on next week."
Bradley scored 220.5 points, outlasting the Blue Raiders by five points. Soddy-Daisy (146) was the only other team in triple digits. Host East Hamilton finished fourth (91.5), followed by Walker Valley (69), Rhea County (41), McMinn County (32.5) and Ooltewah (29).
While Cleveland finished runner-up in Bradley's run to its third consecutive region title, the Blue Raiders out-qualified the Bears for the state tournament, which begins Thursday in Franklin. They will be taking 14, Bradley 13.
It is the first time in coach Josh Bosken's 10-year affiliation with the program that Cleveland has advanced a full complement to the state traditional.
"We needed to get all 14 there if we're going to have a shot at the championship," he said. "Twelve of the 14 are in the top three."
Soddy-Daisy has 10 qualifiers, East Hamilton eight, Walker Valley and Rhea County four each, McMinn County three and Ooltewah two.
Individual champions were Bradley's T.J. Hicks (113), Ryan McElhaney (132), Knox Fuller (145), Austin Mathews (152), Caleb Adkins (160) and Kevin Gentry (195); Cleveland's Bryce Pond (120), Cody Mathews (138), Dylan Jones (170) and Robert Hicks (182); Soddy-Daisy's Landon Wheaton (126) and Ty Boeck (220); Walker Valley's Chandler Davis (106) and Ooltewah's Victor Bednarski (285).
A three-time state champion, Bradley's Army-bound Fuller was selected as the tournament's outstanding wrestler. Best-match honors went to the 120-pound final between Pond and Bradley's Trey Hicks. Pond posted a 3-1 overtime decision.
"Bryce got revenge (for last week's state duals championship loss), wrestled hard and set himself up well for the state," Bosken said.
"Colton (Landers) wrestled well - got three takedowns (against Bradley's McElhaney) - but he got down five points in the first 20 seconds and just never could overcome that," Bosken added. "That's one we let slip away that I feel we should have gotten."
Meanwhile, Bradley junior heavyweight Christopher Cash came up big, offsetting the points the Bears had to surrender. He finished runner-up to Bednarski.
"Big kudos to Christopher. Every team goes into the tournament with focus on one area, and Chris was ours," Smith said. "We had just lost the team points and Chris comes up with 10 (placement points) by winning his semifinal. He beat a kid that had already beaten him, and then he beat Titus (Swafford of Cleveland), which was something nobody watching the tournament expected."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.