The Bradley Central High School wrestling team’s bus broke down.
Fortunately for the Bears, it was on the way home with Tennessee’s Class AAA state championship safely tucked away.
“We had a fuel filter bust, and it was spraying fuel,” Bears coach Ben Smith said.
It was the closest Smith’s team came to a breakdown all weekend.
On the return trip Saturday night from Franklin – where the Bears completed a two-title season after winning the AAA state duals championship there two weeks earlier – parents following the bus noticed something streaming from underneath. So the Bears made an unscheduled overnight stop in Murfreesboro.
“There was no place to get it fixed or get a part, and we felt it was unsafe to continue until we could get it repaired,” Smith said.
Parents helped transport the coaches and 12 wrestlers on the bus to Buffalo Wild Wings and then a hotel. The incident was just another chapter in the storied book that is Bradley Central wrestling.
“We left (Cleveland) politely and returned the same way,” Smith said Sunday afternoon as he and the team finally pulled into the high school parking lot.
When the Bears left last Wednesday they did so with little fanfare. They returned the same way. There was no parade or police escort through town as there had been after the duals championship.
Yet it was just as well for the Bears. Smith would love to stay under the radar, which is likely to be impossible after his program returned to state prominence in grand fashion.
“We’ll be defending champs and underdogs next year,” he said. “Cleveland will be a year older, and Soddy-Daisy will be a year older and a year wiser.”
Based on a scale of six points for a first-place finisher who will return to the lineup to one point for a returning sixth-place finisher, Bradley appears to be the team to beat in AAA, followed by Cleveland, Tennessee High, Beech and Soddy-Daisy.
Bradley should have three returning champions, while Soddy-Daisy, Blackman and Riverdale should have one apiece.
Although Division II champion Father Ryan returns a pretty good team, there could be a shift in the location of next year’s division favorite from middle Tennessee to west. Christian Brothers has 11 returning medalists. Father Ryan has six (including three champions), Baylor has seven (with two champions) and McCallie and MBA each boast six returning medalists.
There appears to be more balance in Class A/AA. Greeneville has the most returning points with one champion, a runner-up, a third-place finisher and a fourth-place finisher.
Alcoa should be strong again, along with state traditional champion Pigeon Forge and possibly state duals winner Red Bank. Each should have a state champion from this season returning to the lineup.
Bonus points
– Bradley Central and Baylor were the most effective pinning teams for the state traditional tournaments, Bradley with 24 and Baylor with 22. Soddy-Daisy was No. 3 on that list with 15. McCallie had 12, and Walker Valley had 11.
– There were a total of 626 pins spread across AAA, A/AA, Division II and the girls division, with 353 coming in the 448-wrestler AAA event.
– Seven wrestlers tied for the pin lead with four apiece. They were led by Riverdale junior heavyweight Nick Boykin, who took 1 minute, 36 seconds total to record his four, and Soddy-Daisy senior 160-pounder Tucker Russo, who took 5:26. Boykin is the brother of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga junior 197-pounder Scottie Boykin
– The fastest pin was in nine seconds, a mark set by four wrestlers: Riverdale’s Boykin, Bradley Central heavyweight D.J. Adams, Jefferson County 160-pounder Aaron Lawson and Hume-Fogg girls’ 130-pounder Isabel Brannon.
– Of the championship teams, Bradley Central earned the most points on average for each of its wrestlers at 18.8. Baylor was at 18.3 points and Father Ryan at 17.6.
– Of the unbeaten wrestlers who entered the tournament with at least 25 wins, nine finished the season with a perfect record: Alcoa heavyweight Sammy Evans (62-0), Baylor 195-pounder Ryan Parker (51-0), Bradley Central 113-pounder T.J. Hicks (44-0), Riverdale’s Boykin (41-0), McCallie 160-pounder Judah Duhm (42-0), Father Ryan 120-pounder Trey Chalifoux (36-0) and 132-pounder Kirby Simpson (36-0), Sequatchie County girls’ 105-pounder Katie Brock (31-0) and Hixson 145-pounder Landon Goforth (30-0).
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.