Gilmer High wrestlers left Murray County with some more first-place hardware.
GHS attended the North Murray Duals last Saturday, finished with a 4-0 record and were crowned tournament champions.
The nine teams at the event were grouped in pools of three, and GHS downed Christian Heritage (76-3) and Murray County (58-21). Head coach Josh Ghobadpoor mentioned that CH just entered the wrestling fray, while Gilmer was able to increase its margin of victory over MCHS.
“Christian Heritage is a second-year program, and they’re still trying to get kids out and build up their program,” Ghobadpoor said. “We only lost one match and there were a lot of forfeits. Our guys who did wrestle, wrestled well.
“Last time we wrestled Murray it came down to the last match (in a 42-30 Gilmer win). We knew it was going to be tough.”
The Bobcats were then seeded with the top teams and got a glimpse of a couple future region opponents in the process. First up was Northwest Whitfield, and the Bobcats rolled to a 57-24 victory to advance to the championship match versus Calhoun.
“Northwest is going to be a region opponent for us so it was good to set the tone and see what they have. We felt really good about that win,” Ghobadpoor said.
Wrestling versus the Yellow Jackets began at 126 pounds, and Bobcat Kade Miller secured a pin before CHS forfeited to Eliceo Perez (132). Next up were pins by Alex Raymundo (138) and Bregan Berry (144) as GHS opened a 24-0 lead.
Calhoun got a pin at 150 and decision at 157 before the Yellow Jackets forfeited to Jovani Raymundo (165). This set up a bout between two of the top wrestlers at the event.
“Calhoun was in 5A last year and had a state finalist at 157, and he was at 175 at this tournament,” Ghobadpoor said. “Carson (Farist) needed a good match because he has not gone into the third period this year. Instead of giving Carson a forfeit at 165, I put Jovani in there and bumped Carson to 175. It worked out the best for us individually and as a team.”
Farist lost a hard-fought battle, 3-0. Bobcats Israel Francisco (190) got a pin and Bryson Shubin-Gibbs (215) won by decision. GHS forfeited at heavyweight and got pinned at 106.
Braelyn Nelson (113) and Manny Velasquez (120) closed out the match with pins for Gilmer.
“We went into this tournament with our best lineup,” Ghobadpoor said. “When you have that and wrestle your best, obviously some things are going to go in your direction. We lost some here and there, but I thought our kids did a very good job. Everybody showed up and weights were good. We had some things we needed to accomplish and we went in there and did that.”
GHS has a 14-4 dual record. The Bobcats will attend the Hwy. 515 Classic today and the Cleveland (Tenn.) Duals Saturday.
Junior varsity
The junior varsity took second at Marietta High’s traditional tournament last Saturday.
Seven Bobcats earned a spot on the medal stand, and leading the way was runner-up Enrique Paiz. Consolation champions and third-place finishers included Eddie Alonzo and Dawson Richard.
Landing in fourth place were Neftali Gomez, Miguel Reynoso, Adolfo Bautista Bautista and Blake Lauterwasser.
Pope edged GHS for first place, 232-225. Dunwoody and Marietta tied for third with 219 points.