Soddy-Daisy has a new sound system, a video screen to show individual matches as they take place and an electric marquee on which to display the wrestlers’ names.
The second-ranked Trojans are on a roll and they have the record to match. Steve Henry’s crew bounded to 9-0 with a 57-15 victory over defending AA state duals champion Hixson on Tuesday.
“I don’t really look at it like that,” Henry said. “Our team is young. We’re still looking for leaders.”
Some leaders surely began to emerge from a championship weekend at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga duals, when Soddy-Daisy beat third-ranked Baylor in the semifinals and No. 4 Cleveland for the title along with three other squads.
“When they get everybody healthy and get everybody situated in the right weight classes, they’re going to be hard to handle,” Hixson coach Garrick Hall said.
Of Soddy-Daisy’s 10 wins Tuesday, eight were by pin and another by disqualification. Three of the pins came in the first period; the others were in the second.
And the Trojans did it with four starters out of the lineup: state champ Campbell Lewis, state runner-up Turbo Smith and Jonah Smith and Jacob Stevens. Turbo Smith was in Johnson City to check on his mother, who had been in an automobile accident, and Henry held Lewis out of the lineup. The other two came up ounces shy of making their weight.
“I’m not happy about the weight issues,” Henry said. “We’ll make some adjustments, but the kids had just one day really to make weight. We had three tough days of wrestling, and then we had to participate in the town Christmas parade on Sunday.”
The nine-match streak may be a first for the Trojans, although Henry wasn’t sure, and it has come in just seven days. He is sure Soddy-Daisy hasn’t had an unbeaten season.
“If we go undefeated, then I haven’t done a very good job of scheduling,” he said.
The Trojans should get a couple of fairly stiff challenges Friday when they take on sixth-ranked Christian Brothers and seventh-ranked McCallie at McCallie, starting at 5 p.m.
The match versus Hixson was a good prelude with pins coming from Austin Holloway, Garrett Alexander, Brad Peckinpaugh, Jacob Adams, Brandon Hunt, Josh Elliott, Kyle Odom, Blake Henry and Alex Seeley.
Hixson (2-1) got a pin from Gary Cosey.
“We’re suffering growing pains,” said Hall, who lost six starters from the 2010 title team. “We’ll go to work tomorrow with the idea of getting better, but we’re in a brutal two-week stretch.”
The Wildcats will wrestle Ooltewah and Bradley Central and compete in Bradley’s invitational tournament Dec. 17-18. They wrestled without senior Logan Vandergriff, who was banged up during Hixson’s visit to the Blackhorse Invitational in Memphis. While Vandergriff placed fourth, the Wildcats finished 11th.