FRANKLIN, Tenn. – As closing acts go, this one is going pretty good for Signal Mountain’s Noah Shriner.
The senior wrestler and his teammates wrapped up a perfect duals season with the program’s first TSSAA state championship as the Eagles defeated Greeneville 39-36 to win the Class A duals title Saturday night at the Williamson County Ag Expo Center.
In his 120-pound match against a Greeneville opponent he had lost to before in the state tournament, Shriner was downright dominant, scoring 11 points in the first period before quickly pinning his way to victory in the second period. Shriner’s teammates followed his lead as Signal Mountain jumped out to a 39-6 advantage to set up its historic moment.
“As an eighth grader I wrestled up and we got runner-up, which definitely hurt,” Shriner said. “I am so glad that at the very end I could be a part of the team that finally won it all. Everything came together. Our whole team wrestled the perfect match. No one believed we could do this, but from day one we knew we had the best wrestling program in our classification. Nothing was going to stop us.”
After falling behind 6-0 after the first match in the championship dual, Signal Mountain (21-0) rattled off the next 39 points. Daniel Odom began the run with a first-period pin at 285 pounds, and freshman Jojo Uhorchuk followed with a tough 4-2 decision at 106 while his brother Ethan had a 48-second pin at 113. Shriner was followed by Jackson Owens, who won 7-3 at 126.