The Guthrie High School and Junior High wrestling squad hit the mats, once again, after a week layoff at the Mid-South Open, at Noble High School, this past Saturday.
While BlueJay Football continues to dominate the water cooler talk with the Jays in the state semi-final’s, the wrestling squad had four grappler’s finish with top places.
For the high school it was Timothy O’Connor taking the top spot at 112 pounds, Michael Conner at 189 pounds, and Blake Finley, who pinned all but one of his opponents on his way to the 8th and 9th grade heavyweight division championship. The junior high first place finisher was eighth grader Alex Nelson.
“With two champions and four other placers, our high school’ers did well.” assistant head coach Scott Pope said. “There were plenty of mistakes and places to improve and we will address that on Monday, but the kids can be proud of their effort this weekend.”
Austin O’Connor finished runner-up in the 119-pound division while Ryan Kitch (135) and Dennis Murphy (160) each placed third. Freshman Josiah Sisco (152) also finished third in the 8th and 9th grade division by going 3-1. Devin Bilyeu, who took top honors in his season debut at Carl Albert, took fourth at 152.
“The Bluejay football team is making another strong run in the playoffs which means it will hopefully be another couple of weeks before we see some of our wrestlers, including our two returning state placers Bryan Dutton and Landry Chappell,” Pope said.
Junior High coach Bryan Couch is pleased how his team is coming along early in the season.
“I feel like our new wrestlers are coming along and learning. It is great to bring home hardware, but the biggest thing we take away is the lessons we learn to work on in the wrestling room,” Couch said.
Nelson with his win this weekend has won both of his open tournaments at 94-pounds. Nelson took down Brent Wilson, who wrestle’s for Team Guthrie (a local little league program) in overtime, as either wrestler was able to score a point in the three periods.
7th grader Tyler Hickman, at 86 pounds, went 2-2 in his four matches. Both wins were results by pin. 8th grader Jose Perwz, at 185 pounds, picked up a pin and finished 1-2 for the weekend.
Both the high school and junior high will have a short week despite just having two days of school with the Thanksgiving Break. The teams will compete in the Pre-Turkey Open, at Edmond Memorial, on Wednesday.
“This is one of the largest and toughest preseason tournaments in the state,” Couch concluded with.
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