The Commerce wrestling team’s tough schedule continues to pay dividends. Not even a schedule change due to winter weather could cool the Tigers off as the team rolled through its competition en route to the 1-A Area 4 duals title.
The win secured the Tigers a spot in the state duals, which begins this Thursday and ends Saturday. The event is held in Macon.
Commerce is looking for its fourth state duals title.
“It was definitely a good weekend,” head coach Kendall Love said. “For a couple of reasons, No. 1 for surviving and advancing. Winning area is always part of your goals for any season. No. 2, we were able to wrestle a lot of young guys, a lot of JV guys got matches, and to still put over 70 up and wrestling that many JV guys is a testament to our younger guys and how hard they’re working.”
The Tigers wrestled 22 guys over the course of three duals; 18 were unbeaten by day’s end, including Owen Brown and Cole Chancey, both went 2-0 and remain unbeaten on the season.
“They’re both athletically talented, they work hard and they hate to lose,” Love said about Brown and Chancey. “When you’ve got those three things, it’s tough to beat that.”
Kole Burchett, Jake Brewer, Chase Forrester and Knox Allen went 3-0.
Dalton and Tucker Flint, Austin Black, Braxton Legg and Cade Ridley went 2-0.
“We’ve got a lot of hard workers and a lot of kids who are gifted athletically,” Love said.
Thomas Harden, Lance Roberts, Chas Ferm, Connor Kyle, Mitchell Patton, Easley Smith and Jeffery Barnard went 1-0.
“It was nice to be able to get them a lot of matches and still have a good performance team wise,” Love said.
The Tigers defeated Mt. Vernon Presbyterian (78-6), St. Francis (71-12) and Wesleyan (74-6).
Love said the team took to his warning of thinking the competition would hand them another area duals crown.
“I told them to go in with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder,” Love stated, “because they’ve definitely been put through the gauntlet, and we said ‘Now is your time to shine,’ and maybe take some of it out on some our area opponents. They did. They wrestled hard.”
Love “hopes” the momentum continues into the state duals.
“I’ve warned the guys all year ‘Class A is tougher this year,’ with so many schools from Class AA dropping down,” Love said. “Some of these perennial wrestling schools like Wesleyan, like Holy Innocents, they’ve all won state titles within the last seven-eight years. They’ve all seen success. They all know what it’s like to win, and they’re all hungry for more.
“You can believe we have targets on our back. We’ll be ready. We’re going to work hard this week. Mentally, we’re not taking anybody lightly.”
He adds Trion to the mix as contenders the Tigers will have to deal with.
“We’re excited about going and trying to extend the streak, and we know we have our work cut out for us, too,” Love added.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.