Indians show they are a more complete team with strong finish at Carpet Classic

Published 10:33 pm Saturday, December 10, 2016

The Indians are no longer a one-man show.

Murray County High School’s wrestling team had the best wrestler in the area last year in Marcelino Lopez. The All-Area wrestler of the year finished the season undefeated and won the Class 3A state championship at 126 pounds, while Tielor Johnson also placed fourth at 170 at state for the Indians.

But the Indians showed on Saturday that they are a much more complete team this season as they finished second at the Carpet Classic tournament at Dalton High School. Murray County scored 140 1/2 team points, finishing five points ahead of the host Catamounts. Sonoraville won the tournament handily with 218 1/2 points while North Murray, the only other area team in the 15-team field, finished 13th with 27 points.

“We lost Tielor and Marcelino from last year’s team and both were state placers,” Murray County coach Matt Harris said. “But as a team and a unit this is strongest full lineup I’ve had here. We may not have the studs like those two, but we are competitive in every weight class.”

Murray County was led by two second place finishes from Ryan Carter at 120 pounds and Grayson Garrett at 138. Carter was 3-1 in the tournament with three pins, but fell to Dalton’s Matthew Tankersley in the finals.

Garrett pinned his first opponent before winning a major decision 14-1 in the quarterfinals. He then defeated Dalton’s Sergio Alvarez in a 3-2 decision before being pinned by Grant Lundy of East Hamilton in the finals.

The loss was only Garrett’s second of the season as he has compiled a 23-2 record.

“The kid from East Hamilton is a stud and pinned him pretty quick, but he wrestled good all day and has all year really,” Harris said. “He’s just a sophomore and is still improving. Last year, he mad a lot of simple freshman mistakes like reaching back. He just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.”

Garrett said he thought he wrestled well on Saturday, but will learn from a costly mistake.

“(Lundy) caught me off guard,” Garrett said. “I didn’t think he’d pop off that fast but he came at me really hard and I just need to learn from that. There was a lot of hard fought matches but I thought I wrestled pretty good.”

Other top finishers for Murray County included Neal Henry (third place, 145 pounds), Austin Leon (third, 195), John Dooley (fourth, 132), Melqui Delgado (fourth, 152) and Tyler Tenney (fourth, 220).

Dalton is still short-handed from the football team’s long playoff run with four starters still recovering from the season and getting ready to start wrestling. Once they get up to speed, Dalton coach Michael Keefe thinks this team could be very successful.

“I think we are doing really well and are starting to come together now,” Keefe said. “It’s still December so it’s early, but region duals are just around the corner and we haven’t gotten our football players worked in yet. We probably won’t show our true colors until about February. But we’ve got a team that’s really special and they are starting to pull their stuff together. Hopefully by the time we get to region duals, we will be the team we need to be.”

Tankersley was the only local wrestler to finish first in his class. He pinned all four of his opponents on Saturday, an impressive showing considering this was his first event back from a recurring hip injury.

“This is my first tournament back from being hurt and I got the job done,” Tankersley said. “It was my hip again, which I hurt last year and that kind of kept me from being able to do what I should have done at state. It felt great to finish first and help the team out. I just went out there and wrestled hard and everything fell together like it was supposed to.”

Earning second places for Dalton were Jaxon Wells (126), Joseph Reese (182) and Sharif Rahman (220). Jerardo Garcia (113) and Ethan Carroll (126) placed third, while Sergio Alvarez (138) was fourth.

North Murray was short-handed as well on Saturday due to three starters being out with injuries. The Mountaineers were led by Jarret Jones, who fell in the consolation finals when Triston Garner of Adairsville pinned him when Jones was leading on score. Jones said he got off to a slow start on Saturday, but the young wrestler was pleased with the way he responded.

“My first match was kind of bad, but the last two were pretty good,” Jones said. “I shouldn’t have tried to wrap my legs around (Garner), I should have just turned on my belly and let him up then gone for another takedown. But I’m just a freshman and I am still learning. We have a young team but we’re trying to get to state and I think we can do it.”

Indeed, the bulk of the Mountaineers roster is ninth graders. Coach Ron Budden said that the group has shown a lot of potential, but needs to learn to be more technical wrestlers.

“They are continuing to develop their technique and they were really aggressive, but sometimes that aggressiveness would get them in trouble as far as applying their wrestling moves,” Budden said. “We came here with eight wrestlers because we have three or four out right now, including Dylan Flood who I think has a chance to win the area this year. But my core group of freshman are going to develop because they are teachable and very disciplined.”

Noah Morrison (106), Bradley Tant (113), Kevi Bogovich (152) and Jasper Pierce (170) each picked up two wins for the Mountaineers on Saturday before falling in the consolation third round.