Blackman packed up and headed to Memphis this past weekend for the 2015 Blackhorse Invitational @ Houston High School. There was lots of nervous energy as this was our first tournament of the 2015-2016 season.
Having a great start is huge at tournaments like this and our wrestlers had a very successful first day! Going into the 3rd round, we finished with 5 strong pins, led by D. Heath with the quickest of the day at 20 seconds, 1 Major Decision, and 3 Decision matches, with only 3 wrestlers entering the consolation bracket. Going into the 4th round we had Lukens with a pin @ 5m 10s, Chew with a pin @ 2m 40s, Brown with a Decision, Sells with a pin @ 1m 21s, and Bravo also with a pin @1m 56s all entering the Semi Finals match.
Saturday morning 12 out of 14 were still wrestling (1 had injuries on Day 1). In the Semi Finals match Cole Lukens (106) lost a tough match to place him into the consolation round and he finished with 6th place. Chew (120) and Brown (132) were also bumped down to the consolation and both ended with with wins by pin to place 5th. Fowler (145) battled tough competition all tournament and placed 4th. Cross and Thomas both wrestled well and continued on in the consolation rounds and both ended up placing 7th. Bravo (195) and Sells (160) both came up short in the finals match to place 2nd. Bravo lost by 3 and Sells only lost by 1. Overall, Blackman finished a respectable 6th out of 23 teams from TN, AL and LA. Not as well as we would have liked, but our new guys got great experience and we are building as a team! We go into this week with some work to do. This weekend we will be at Tullahoma for the Garner Dyer Duals. Please come out and support your Blackman Blaze Wrestling Team!