In winning Tennessee’s first Class A/AA traditional wrestling championship, Hixson High School slipped in the back door.
When the dust settled, literally, at the Williamson County Agricultural Expo in Franklin last year, the Wildcats had placed 10 of their 12 qualifiers in the medals and won the team title without a single champion.
Will a team ever do that again?
“I don’t know. It worked out pretty well last year,” Hixson coach Garrick Hall said.
The Wildcats didn’t wrestle so well on Friday of the 2014 tournament, and by the night’s end Hall had convinced himself that their chase was over.
“I actually went over on Friday night and congratulated the Alcoa coach, and then we got there on Saturday morning and started winning and winning and winning,” Hall recalled.
Hixson is one of four teams with 10 or more qualifiers for the 2015 A/AA event, which starts at 11 a.m. EST Friday, a day after the Class AAA tournament begins. Also, Division II and girls’ competition will begin Friday.
While Hixson is the defending champion, most are casting the A/AA favorite’s role on Pigeon Forge, which beat Hixson for that classification’s duals championship on Jan. 31.
“If you look on paper you have to figure Pigeon Forge to win it, but if you looked at it on paper last year you had to figure Pigeon Forge would win it. They took 13 and we took 12,” Hall said.
Shane Turner, whose Red Bank Lions gave Hixson a serious run for the Region 2 title last weekend, agreed.
“Pigeon Forge has to be the odds-on favorite just by the sheer firepower they have in their lineup. They’re loaded,” Turner said. “If it holds to seeds they should have seven in the finals. If they do that, then the deal is done.”
No one is yet waving the proverbial white flag of surrender, though.
Pigeon Forge has the numbers. The Tigers have 14 qualifiers and seven of them won Region 1 championships. Another three are coming off region runner-up finishes.
However, Alcoa and Hixson have 11 qualifiers each and Red Bank has 10. The four teams are the only ones with 10 or more qualifiers.
“Red Bank can make some noise in this tournament. Alcoa could make some noise,” Hall said. “What it comes down to is kids going out there and getting after it.”
Turner isn’t about to write off his Lions, who were on the short side of their nip-and-tuck battle with Hall’s Wildcats.
“I think we have a shot. It isn’t like we’re just overwhelming underdogs with no chance at all,” he said. “If we wrestle like I think we’re capable, we’ll be in the hunt for all of it.”
Class A/AA’s first session will include the round of 16 and the quarterfinals. All classification semifinals begin at 7 p.m. EST Friday. Saturday’s schedule picks up at 11 a.m. with consolation finals and medal rounds for all divisions. The championship finals in each classification will start at 6 p.m.
Admission is $10 per person per day, and parking is $5 per day.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.