Four others bound for sectionals
With a home crowd cheering them on, eight Greyhounds wrestlers punched their tickets to the next round of the postseason. As if that were not enough, four Jones County grapplers claimed region titles in Friday’s Region 2-AAAA Tournament at the JCHS Gymnasium.
By the end of the day, Arrie Martin, Jacob Skinner, Luke Thompson and Barrett Rosenberger had captured region championships. Martin took first at 165 pounds with Skinner, Thompson and Rosenberger winning at 175, 215, and 285 pounds.
But Jones County was not finished. Secondplace finishes by Hunter McCleskey at 113 pounds, Noah Pieterick at 144 and Nate Wilson at 150 added to the Greyhounds’ big day, along with Nate McDaniel qualifying for sectionals at 126 pounds.
Now, the Greyhounds are getting set for this weekend’s sectionals at Harris County, where the top eight finishers in each 16-wrestler bracket move on to the next weekend’s state tournament.
So, as satisfying as any region hardware may be, there is now another job to do.
“We’re excited. The team as a whole has worked really hard.
So, for them to see that success, it’s good.
It’s exciting for them,” Gillhouse said. “Now, the goal just shifts. The goal was to get to sectionals.
Now, it’s to get out of sectionals. Next week, the goal will be to get to state, and the next one, it will be to place at state.”
Chasing a state tournament berth won’t be unchartered territory for this group of wrestlers.
Of its eight sectional qualifiers, seven have wrestled in the state tournament before. It’s a stage that all of them will have to rise to the occasion at sections in order to attain “Of our eight, seven of them have been to state before, so they know how it goes. We’ll definitely lean on that experience,” Gillhouse said. We’ve talked about it all year.
The goal is to prepare our guys for this. It’ll be a bracket that’ll be smaller than some that we have wrestled all year. Our guys have wrestled in some tough and big tournaments, and they’ve been in position to succeed in tournaments like this one.”
