H.S. Wrestling: Rocky Top is Home to the Highest
Written by playerpress.com, Thursday March 19 2009
The highest ranked wrestling team that is. The Volunteer State broke the dominance of the Peach State by sending one of their own to the number one ranking of the NWCA poll. The Bradley Central Bears, Cleveland, TN are the State Champions for the 19th time.
Along with the state titles the Bears have captured 17 consecutive Region 3 Dual Titles. All of this hardware has been accumulated since 1994. These guys have to be bulked just to lift all of their trophies. Along with all of the collective titles the team has produced individual accomplishments that cannot be matched. These include 45 state champions, 127 medalists and six outstanding wrestlers in state tournaments. If that’s not enough they also featured a four time state champion, 2 three time state champions and 5 two time state champions. If you need more they also have 16 high school All Americans on their resume.
This season’s top point leader was Senior David Graham. The 135 pound grappler had 34 wins, 2 losses and 29 pins for a point’s total of 289.40. The team points total was 2920.4 as the Bears ran away with the overall rankings.
2. North Forsyth, GA: The Raiders held the top spot for a long time, but they were run over by the Bears at the end of the season. North Forsyth totaled up 2519.15 points. Their individual point’s leader was Junior Brian Kennedy. The 189 pounder amassed 349.75 points along with a 52-13 record that included 35 pins.
North Forsyth’s team held the most spots in the top 10 individual rankings. They placed four with #3 Brian Kennedy, 347.75, #4 Tristan Bourque, 344.35 and #5 Ryan Cross, 335.70. The #9 individual spot was claimed by Alex Lanier with 322.45 points. Coach Travis Jarrard has enough guys left on his roster to make the Raiders as competitive next season as they were in 2008-’09.
3. Bentonville, AR: The Tigers squeezed between two Georgia schools by racking up 2478.7 points. Their big man on campus was Senior Caleb Bourland. The 119 pounder shows an affinity for quartets with a 44-4 record that features 29 pins and paid off with 292.90 points.
4. Ola, GA: The Ola Mustangs said hello to the four spot with a point’s total of 1957.75. Joe Carman was their go to guy as the 215 pound Junior led the way with 44-10 record that included 26 pins for a 275.10 points total.
5. St. Pius X, NM: As a team St. Pius compiled 1864.65 points with their individual strong man being Senior Tyler Hartom. The 140 pound battler boasted a record of 44-2 with 20 pins that was good for 367.50 points. That made him the NCWA individual point’s leader. While Hartom can celebrate being number one it was close as second place Zak Moore of Appalachee, GA trialed with 367.40. By the end of the season Zak’s school had dropped to #13 in the standings.
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Great to see a major blog network cover high school wrestling!