MARTINSVILLE — For the second straight year Southmont wrestling competed at the annual Team State Duals. The Mounties made the trip this year to Martinsville High School on Saturday where they wrestled in the Class A bracket. Southmont, going up against arguably the best competition they have seen this season, placed 11th overall on the day going 1-2 in their three dual matches.
In the opening match of the day the Mounties were pitted against Adams Central and fell 51-24. Southmont took on Cowan in match two and a competitive match saw the Mounties ultimately fall 42-30. In their final match of the day in the 11th place match, Southmont was able to right the ship and end the day with a 45-34 win over Daleville.
“Adams Central is a very good team and we could’ve competed if wrestled a little bit better,” Southmont coach Jamie Welliever said. “There just wasn’t any wiggle room for us in that one. Against Cowan that just wasn’t our overall best effort by any means. We lost matches we could’ve won and ended up getting pinned a few different times which were killers.”
The pins proved to be the story in the first two matches of the day for Southmont as Adams Central jumped out to 24-0 lead with four straight pins to begin the opening match. Cowan was able to get multiple wins via pin as well which proved to be too deep of a hole for the Mounties to recover from. Welliever did however like the response from his team in the final round to be able to end the day with a victory.
“That really does start to build momentum for the other team,” Welliever said of the pins. “I was proud of the guys in the last match even the guys who lost, they didn’t get pinned which allowed us to keep our lead. That last round was our best overall effort of the day. We were able to get a lot of pins of our own finally and our guys battled and at least we picked ourselves up and come out here 11th place of all the single A teams in the state.”
Heavyweight Zayden Dunn proved to be a bright spot for Southmont on the day going a perfect 3-0 in his matches. Brier Riggle (109), Noah Benge (120/126), Maddox Cade (132), Gerald Hutson (138), Wyatt Woodall (195/220), and Collin Martin (220/195) all went 2-1 on the day to finish with winning records.
Southmont by earning a spot for the second straight season has started to prove they are one of the better single A teams in the state and Welliever talked about his team getting the opportunity to be back again.
“It’s a great honor for us to be back here two years in a row,” he said. “It’s not easy to earn a spot at this tournament. With our Regional and Semi-State being a handful it’s hard to rack up enough point to be able to qualify. Hopefully this group come tournament time will be able to make it three in a row and we’ll be back here next year.”
Southmont will have a dual meet with Fountain Central on Tuesday before gearing up for the Sagamore Conference meet on Saturday where the Mounties will look to make it three straight conference titles.
