After being sidelined for a week and a half, Gilmer wrestling was back on the mat.
GHS welcomed four teams to its home gym last Thursday for the annual Bobcats Duals. While Gilmer still was not at full strength, the Bobcats were strong enough to secure four more wins to improve to 26-5 on the season.
“I thought we did pretty well. With the mat time we’ve had and considering some of the adversity we’ve had to deal with, I felt like we had three pretty good days of practice,” said GHS coach Josh Ghobadpoor.
Prior to last week, GHS missed two events as seasonal illnesses made their way through the program. The Bobcats were also given a week off with no practices as wrestlers recovered.
“Overall, I thought we wrestled well even though our conditioning took a little bit of a hit. We had some guys who had to step into some roles and some did a pretty good job,” Ghobadpoor said.
Following a round one throttling of Montgomery High (78-3), the Bobcats rolled to wins over Chestatee (58-18), Etowah (51-15) and Forsyth Central (60-18). Gilmer senior Dylan Galloway achieved a career milestone by tallying his 100th high school victory during the event.
Gilmer’s 4-0 day came while missing four former state placers from its starting lineup, which include two state finalists.
“There are still some question marks about certain wrestlers in certain spots, but that’s something we’ll continue to assess every day,” Ghobadpoor said.
“I think with the focus now being on the postseason, we’ll be able to go in there and focus on those needs with those wrestlers to get them to the best of their ability for the upcoming tournaments.”
The first stage of the postseason comes Friday with the area duals. Ghobadpoor expects GHS to be at full strength for the event and might take some precautions with practice.
“I think we should have everyone back this week. Keeping in mind there are people still sick, we might make some changes to the practice room as far as how many we keep in there to minimize some of those obstacles and keep everyone as healthy as possible,” he said. “With it being just varsity from this point on, that’s something we realistically have to look at.”
Area duals will be held Friday at the GHS gym beginning at 3 p.m. Gilmer, North Murray, Murray County, Dawson County and East Forsyth will be the teams in attendance. State duals preliminaries will follow next week.
“We want to be crisp and move and fly around the room and have everyone in good spirits,” Ghobadpoor said of this week’s practice plans. “Attitudes have to be at an all-time high in terms of willingness to work and be able to take constructive criticism to get better.
“We’ll shorten our practices a little bit because right now we’re fine tuning and sharpening up.”