It’s likely that Central’s 25 dual-meet victories are the most of any team that will be competing in the Tennessee high school state wrestling duals tournament today and Saturday.
“We wrestled in four dual-meet tournaments,” Purple Pounders coach Steve Price said. “We were getting in five meets in one day.”
Very few of his wrestlers were born the last time Central made a duals tournament appearance.
“It was 1992, my senior year, and we finished fifth,” Price recalled.
Central (25-14) won the first Small School (A/AA) division title in 1990 and is in the A/AA final eight this year.
“Central was a small fish in a bigger pond, wrestling with Red Bank, Ooltewah and Soddy-Daisy — schools that had much larger enrollments,” Price said.
The tournament starts this afternoon at 4:30 EST in Franklin at the Williamson County Agricultural Expo. Hixson is back to defend its A/AA state championship, and Bradley Central will try to retain the AAA crown.
One of Bradley’s 15 challengers will be crosstown rival Cleveland, and Baylor and McCallie will be shooting for the Division II championship along with six other teams.
Hixson beat Notre Dame in last year’s A/AA final, ending the Irish’s state-title run at three.
“I have talked with the guys about having a target on our backs,” Hixson coach Garrick Hall said. “That’s the way it has been all year, and that was the focus when I talked with them earlier this week.”
The Wildcats had to replace five starters from the 2008-09 team, but Hall pointed out that all but one of the starters this year were at least in attendance last year.
“I’ll feel better once we get up there and know that everybody is on weight,” Hall said. “If we wrestle to our potential we can wrestle with anybody, and we have shown that. We beat Soddy-Daisy and Ooltewah. We lost to Bradley, but nobody is going to challenge Bradley.”
All teams will wrestle two meets today. Championship finals Saturday begin at 6 p.m. for A/AA, 7 for Division II and 8 for AA.
Neither defending champion Baylor nor McCallie is the Division II favorite; Father Ryan and Christian Brothers seem the teams to beat this year. Ryan has two wins and Christian Brothers one this season over Baylor’s Red Raiders, who defeated McCallie earlier this week.
“I guess it depends on how many we can get back healthy,” Baylor coach Jim Morgan said. “I don’t think we have a lot of margin for error. We need to wrestle well, and in some cases that might be survival — not giving up the big bonus points.”
If pairings go as expected, Baylor will wrestle Christian Brothers and McCallie will take on Father Ryan in tonight’s semifinals.
“Ryan has beaten everybody, and I would think they’d be the favorite. Baylor, if everybody is in the lineup, is pretty strong,” McCallie coach Mike Newman said.
Baylor is hobbling. In addition to losing senior Trey Stavrum early in the season to a broken ankle, the Red Raiders may be without 119-pound Zach Watson and 135-pound Cole Hayes. Watson reinjured an ankle while warming up for the McCallie meet, and Hayes was on crutches after injuring his ankle walking down steps at school.
Nic Bullard, who just got back to the team three weeks ago, sustained an ankle injury against McCallie. He was filling in for Adam Shuford (160), who has been out with a shoulder injury.
“I have never had this many injuries any time at Baylor or even at UTC,” said Morgan, a longtime University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach. “We may do like the basketball team and start getting ankles taped before practice.”
McCallie also has been banged up, and the Blue Tornado lost heavyweight Austin Hicks against Baylor. Hicks suffered a broken arm and dislocated elbow and had surgery the following day. Newman, who got 125-pound Taylor Silberman (knee surgery) back a couple of weeks ago, is hopeful that Alex Elsea (103) is able to get physicians’ clearance after sustaining a concussion a couple of weeks ago.
The biggest problem Bradley Central has faced was settling the lineup. Ethan Hames has settled in at 119 and Tyler Pitts at 125. Both are former 103-pound state champions, Hames in 2008 and Pitts last year.
Cleveland, which was runner-up to Bradley in last year’s duals tournament, is looking for another shot at the Bears, who beat them handily in the teams’ regular-season meet.
“I don’t know if we’re the best team or the second, third or fourth best, but I know we have drilled on everything we expect to encounter,” Cleveland coach Eric Phillips said.