Against a tournament field that included three recent state champions, the Greyhounds’ hopes of winning the Gauntlet In Gray not only came down to the final match, but the 215-pound bout went into overtime.
Luke Thompson delivered, getting an exuberant win for Jones County, which took first place in the tournament that it hosted. The Greyhounds, who accumulated 135 points overall, beat out West Laurens by nine points and Cass by 12.5 as well as Toombs County giving JCHS a feast of first-place glory the day before Thanksgiving. All told, JCHS beat out three teams that are recent state champions.
“That was big; it’s big to win that. You had three top-five teams that were all there, and that was a goal to bring in the best teams we could,” Greyhounds head coach Adam Gillhouse said. “Our guys wrestled really well and hard.”
Thompson’s climatic win may have sealed the tournament title, but it was the result of what Jones County was able to do up and down its roster of wrestlers. A total of nine Greyhound grapplers placed in the top three of their weight class on Wednesday, led by first-place wins by Thompson, Arrie Martin at 165 pounds, and Jacob Skinner at 190. But the stockpiling of points didn’t end there. Second-place finishes came from Hunter McCleskey at 120 pounds, Nate Wilson at 150, and Hunter Hardwick in the 175-pound bracket.
Strong finishes against strong finishes resulted in even more points with Dawson Walker, Noah Pieterick, and Alex Hammond placing third in the 113, 144 and 285-pound divisions with Barrett Rosenberger also tacking on points with his fourth-place finish at 285.
With last week’s win in hand, however, the goal for the Greyhounds is not to look back but move ahead. That next step in that is at this weekend’s Southern Slam tournament in Greenville, South Carolina.
“The goal is to get better every weekend. I feel like we have done that,” Gillhouse said. “But this week can’t be our best week of wrestling. We have to continue to get better.”
