Beat up and run over most of the season, Soddy-Daisy found its health and made its own breaks to win the Region 4 wrestling tournament Saturday at Red Bank.
One of three mats sat vacant much of the day and referees had to take breaks, but after almost nine hours the Trojans had reclaimed a region championship that had eluded them the past two years.
They scored 233 points, easily outdistancing 2008 champion Ooltewah, which finished second with 169.5. Defending champion Hixson was third with 139.5 points while Red Bank was fourth with 120 and Central was fifth with 104.5.
Plagued by illness and injury into mid-January, the Trojans finally began to get healthy. And when some teams backed off workouts during the state duals week, Soddy-Daisy went back to two-a-day practices.
“My dad wished me good luck this morning,” coach Steve Henry said. “I know what he was saying and I know he meant well, but I told him, ‘Dad, there’s no luck involved. You make your own breaks in this sport.'”
First-year program East Hamilton (Jake Nicholson, 145) and Sale Creek (Nathan Davis, 171) secured their first state qualifiers. Silverdale Baptist, now coached by former Central champ Ricky Johnson, and second-year program Signal Mountain, coached by Casey Thompson, got their first region champions — the Seahawks’ 145-pound Ryan Powell and the Eagles’ 130-pound Logan Henley.
Other champions were Soddy-Daisy’s Kyle Eustice (103), Campbell Lewis (125), Turbo Smith (140), Billy Swanson (215) and Alex Seeley (285); Ooltewah’s Goose Manning (160) and Tyler Toon (189); Notre Dame’s Grayson Mullin (112) and Jack Boone (119); Hixson’s Drew Schefano (135); Red Bank’s Peyton Williams (152), and East Ridge’s Micah Kidd (171).
Of more import than team or individual titles this weekend, though, were wrestlers who qualified for the state, which begins Thursday in Franklin.
East Ridge had the best percentage, entering with seven and advancing six (.854).
“We came in and wrestled as well as we possibly could,” Pioneers coach Brad Jackson said. “We might could have won a couple more in the medal rounds, but winning five overtime matches tells me that our kids have been working hard and that they didn’t quit.”
Soddy-Daisy led with 10 state qualifiers. Ooltewah and Red Bank each had seven, Hixson six, Central five, Signal Mountain four, Howard and Silverdale two each and East Hamilton, Lookout Valley and Sale Creek one apiece.
The story, though, seemed to revolve around Soddy-Daisy.
The Trojans’ 152-pounder, Luke Reno, was pulled from the junior varsity regional earlier this week, and scored more first-day points than any of his teammates. He wound up finishing third. Too, heavyweight Alex Seeley overcame a season in which endured a serious bout with pneumonia and a concussion to win a championship. Seeley entered the tournament with a 14-14 record and was unseeded.
“To know where Soddy-Daisy started at the beginning of year and how they’re wrestling now just proves once again that Steve and his coaching staff always have their kids prepared for the postseason,” Jackson said. “I don’t think Soddy-Daisy is going to be satisfied until they bring back some more hardware from the state tournament.”
Henry said his team hopes to remind some people that Soddy-Daisy is still around.
“A lot of people across the state forgot us and wrote us off. I kept telling our kids and our parents to hang in there and be patient, that we’d be around at the end,” Henry said.