Still in its infancy, the Greenwood High School wrestling program continues to have success in its first season, and is showing constant improvement and steady growth, according to head coach John Kincade. Larger than expected participation has helped the Bulldogs to field wrestlers in every weight class this season, and three of them have really excelled.
At the top of the list is sophomore Taylor Compton. “He’s currently 19-1,” said Coach Kincade. “He got beat by a kid from Texas, 3-2, but he beat the [same] kid the day before. I think just the pressure of being undefeated eventually got to him, but he’s holding his own pretty [well].” Also doing well are seniors Alex Bryant and Tyler Thompson. Bryant wrestles in the 160-pound weight class, while Thompson is a heavyweight at 285 pounds. Thompson was also a starting lineman for the GHS state championship football team.
But the coach was all smiles last Monday when he shared the news that Brett Calhoun, a defending state champion in the small schools classification, left Union Christian in Fort Smith and enrolled at Greenwood. Since his family already lives in the district, there is no impediment to Calhoun joining the team immediately.
“He’s lived in Greenwood about all of his life,” said Kincade, “but he’s gone [to school] at Union Christian. But they only had four or five kids wrestling on their team, and three them were seniors, so he made the decision to come [to Greenwood]. He’ll be wrestling at 195 pounds for me, but last year he was a state champion at 182 pounds in small schools [competition].”
Through his private wrestling academy, Kincade also previously coached Calhoun, so the two are quite familiar with each other. The coach characterized his new addition as “a big plus” for the program. “It’s a good deal for him [and] it’s just kind of worked out [well] for all of us.”
“It looks pretty promising,” said the coach of his blossoming program. “We’ve got some good kids who I think are going to fair well in the state tournament when it comes around. Taylor [Compton] is 19-1 with 12 falls. That means he’s pinned his opponent 12 times. There wasn’t really anybody within eight points of him until we got to the tournament last weekend at Springdale Har-Ber. There were 17 teams from a five-state area, so we got competition from all around, from very good to about our caliber. And I was interested in seeing if our inexperienced kids were willing to fight, to the best of their ability, and they did. But they were going against teams with kids who’ve been wrestling for about 10 years,” said the coach.
“Alex Bryant beat kids that were better than him mat-wise. They had more skills, but they didn’t have more desire. Right now Alex is 14-5 at 160 pounds. Tyler Thompson is 12-4 at heavyweight. I’m very pleased with the kids and their effort, and I’m very pleased with our attendance, even over the Christmas holiday. I think they are buying into the program. People are supporting us really [well]. It’s met my expectations and above and beyond.”
The Bulldogs will travel to Russellville on Thursday (January 10th) to face Russellville and Conway, before getting the weekend off. Next Tuesday the team will travel to Rogers Heritage for a tournament, before going to Conway for a tournament sponsored by Greenbrier, which is also just starting its wrestling program. The next home action for Greenwood will be Tuesday, Janaury 22nd, on the GHS campus at the old rock gym at 6 p.m.