Blackman hosted the Cookeville Cavaliers and the LaVergne Wolverines last night in their first dual of the season among fellow AAA Region 5 / District 10 schools.
If your team has the goal of going to the TSSAA State Duals, you understand that region and district match ups are SUPER important. Coming off of a solid performance last week at the Black Horse, Coach Ronnie Bray hoped to see the Blaze take care of business in region play.
In the first dual of the night, Blackman faced Cookeville. The Cavs are always tough opponents and they usually have at least a few very strong and hard-nosed kids. The dual started off at 195 pounds with Blackman’s Spencer Layne wrestling Dyllan Houser. Houser is a big and strong guy and he gave Spencer a fight. A second period reversal put Spencer on the scoreboard and from there, he held on to win 4-2.
At 220, freshman Blake Barrett got several shots on his opponent before pinning him in the 2nd. After trading forfeits at 106 and 285, we went to 113 pounds. Blackman’s Peyton Adams scored a PIN over David Weldner and put the Blaze up 21-6 in the dual. From there, it was Blackman solidly in control. Liam Elam, Austin Marlatt, Daniel Bradford, Jalen Brown, Brooks Sacharczyk, and Landon Fowler all got PINS. Final Score – Blaze 54 – Cookeville 24.
When asked about his team’s performance, Head Coach Ronnie Bray said, “Brooks (Sacharczyk) handling Bos (Region Finalist) the way he did” was impressive. Bray went on to say that another bright spot was “Peyton Adams improving from the weekend.”
After the Cookeville match, Blackman went straight into the match with LaVergne. The Wolverines typically have a smaller squad but they have some scrappy kids and they were full of fight. However, the Blaze simply had too much firepower as they overwhelmed LaVergne 66-9. The match started with LaVergne’s Hector Felrciono-Torres winning a very tough match over Blake Barrett 8-3. From there it was all Blaze. Pins were scored by Adams, Elam, Marlatt, Bradford, Stebbins, Brown, Sacharczyk, Fowler, and Layne. Jamil Hughes and Jeremiah Savage earned decisions and Tytus Kirby-Reach won his match by DQ. Final Score – Blaze 66 – LaVergne 9.
Although the wins were convincing, and the Blaze moved to 4-0, Bray and his squad were not satisfied with their performance. “I thought we were a little sluggish last night compared to how well we wrestled this weekend”, said Bray. Asked what needs to be improved, Bray said, “We will just keep working hard, gain experience, and working on technique.”
On another positive note, there was a JV mat running the whole night and the Blaze JV squad won 15 out of 22 matches. Winners on the JV mat included Gabe Gomez, Aaron Fisher, Brendan Barber, Jayden Hemphill, Riley Hanner, and Jaylan Hughes.
Photos from the duals will be available soon on the PHOTOS page.
Catch the Blaze in action again THIS THURSDAY NIGHT at Blackman. Independence and Shelbyville will be headed to The Fire Pit and things are sure to be interesting!!!
Go Blaze!!