After winning the Class 5A Dual State team championship in late January, the Greenwood High School wrestling team added some more heavy hardware to their trophy cases last weekend.
The Bulldogs won six individual wrestling titles and had six more top four finishers, winning the 5A West Conference title at the meet held last Saturday at Hot Springs Lakeside High School.
The title winners for Greenwood included Hayden Rofkhar (106 pounds), Gustavo Martinez (113), Ty Moose (126), Colton Tuck (138), Greg Dean (145), and Dylan Wilson (160).
Rofkhar won by decision over Cody Lemaster of Greenbrier in the finals, while Martinez won his title match by decision over Hayden Smedley, also of Greenbrier.
Ty Moose defeated Jay Krisell of Greenbrier in a fall (:59), while Colton Tuck triumphed over Gavin McCartney of Russellville, also by a fall (1:57).
Greenwood’s Greg Dean was victorious over Nate Robinson of Benton, winning a 3-0 decision, and senior Dylan Wilson topped Branden Puckett of Hot Springs Lakeside in a fall (1:24).
Head Coach John Kincade also had a second-place finisher in Tyler Crossno at 220 pounds, and a trio of third place wrestlers in Garrett Haralson (120), Sam Johnson (152), and Garrett Newman (170).
Coming in fourth place in their weight category were Charlie Nena (182) and Tatum Sadler (132).
“It was a good test [for us],” said Kincade of the meet. “I knew it was going to be close between Lakeside and us. Our lower weights did a great job. That gave us a lot of momentum.
“Lakeside finished about 12 points behind us,” he added. “It’s going to be the same at state – Lakeside, Searcy, and us. Overall it was a real good [result].
The Bulldogs will next compete in the 5A state tournament sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association. That will be held at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, February 22-23.
According to Kincade, the AAA does not officially recognize the Dual State events held in January, because they don’t want to sanction two state championships in the same year in the same sport across classifications.
The duals were sponsored by an association of the state’s wrestling coaches, and involved the same teams and athletes who will be competing at UALR next week.
“Everybody in the wrestling world knows it was a state championship,” said the GHS coach, who also hopes to send some athletes to the Meet of Champions later in the spring.
That event features competition among the state’s individual wrestling champions and includes a banquet and other festivities. Those individual state champs will be determined at UALR next week.
Prior to competing in the conference meet, the Bulldogs warmed up with a three-school meet involving Greenwood, Russellville, and Poteau (OK) last Thursday.
The ‘Dogs easily out-pointed the Russellville Cyclones, 63-17, winning 11 of 14 matches. They also topped the Pirates in a much closer match, winning 36-29. Though both teams won six matches each, Greenwood took the meet on points.