The closest thing to a high school state championship wrestling competition in the second week of December occurred on McCallie’s campus this weekend.
Powerhouse program’s from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee competed Friday and Saturday in the McCallie Invitational, which included 30 teams and countless returning state champions along with one of the country’s top-ranked wrestlers in Signal Mountain junior JoJo Uhorchuk.
Uhorchuk did not disappoint either, as the No. 4 ranked wrestler in his weight class by Sports Illustrated won the 126-pound bracket and was voted the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler as he defeated McCallie freshman Jaxon Lane by a 7-1 decision in a matchup of defending TSSAA state champions.
“I knew I would match up with Jaxon,” said Uhorchuk, who scored all of his points in the second period with a takedown, back points and a 3-point cradle. “He is a really good wrestler who has great upper-body strength. We both train at Minions, so we have nothing but love and respect for one another.
“Getting a challenging match at the start of the season is nice to see where we are and what we need to work on for the rest of the season.”
After sweeping the TSSAA state team tournaments last season, McCallie picked up right where it left off by running away with the tournament title with 240.5 team points, well ahead of runner-upBrentwood High School with 170 points and Christian Brothers in third with 163.5.
The Blue Tornado had a pair of champions with junior Axel Ritchie winning at 120 and freshman Dylan Villers taking the title at 144. Chattanooga Christian had a pair of champions with Ryder Smith dominating at 215 and Jonah Bumgarner winning at 190 for the Chargers.
Signal’s Ethan Uhorchuk, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga signee, won at 138 with a 16-6 major decision over Ringgold’s Billy Hamilton to join JoJo as champions for the Eagles.
Villers won his second straight McCallie Invitational individual title, setting himself up for a chance to one day become the event’s first five-time winner. Villers scored 35 points over two technical fall victories, which included a 17-1 (2:20) showing in the finals, while he also had a pair of first period pins.
“Dylan is a stud,” McCallie head coach Jake Yost said. “Even kids who win state titles have a hard time winning this. It’s a tough tournament, and for him to have done it twice already as a ninth-grader is special. Axel did a great job and beat a kid he lost to here last year. He did a great job getting to his offense and had three takedowns in his final’s victory (10-3 decision over Boyd Buchanan’s Nolan Hardeman) against a really tough kid.”
A pair of Northwest Georgia standouts also won titles in Christian Heritage’s Harrison Murdock (150) and Ringgold’s Tristan Busch (157).
Murdock survived a hard-fought championship bout against back-to-back GHSA state champion Pierce Pennington of Ringgold with a 2-1 tiebreaker-1 victory. Meanwhile, Busch pummeled his competition as he was the only local champion to pin all of his opponents — which he did four times in a matter of 10 minutes.
McCallie’s Brody Connell (132) and Cooper Gentle (285) finished as tournament runners-up, as did Signal Mountain’s Jackson Davis (175) and Lakeview Fort-Oglethorpe’s Blake Rizzo (215).
“Brody had a great tournament for us and wrestled hard,” Yost said. “He has become a leader in the room and has grown up a ton since his freshman year. These guys are doing a great job supporting each other and did a great job this weekend. We are doing all we can to get ready for February and this was a good test. Everybody grew and got better.
Ringgold, CCS and Heritage finished fourth through sixth, respectively, as the programs were separated by totals of 138-to-136.5 points. Signal Mountain finished 10th with 132.5 points.
Contact Patrick MacCoon at pmaccoon@timesfreepress.com.