GREYHOUND GRAPPLERS
The focus is pretty singular for the Greyhounds as they emerge out of Christmas break. That’s to be the best version of themselves next weekend for the region duals on Jan. 13. That’ll bring all of the region’s wrestling teams to JCHS for a dual format tournament. The top two teams from there will advance to the state duals championships on Jan. 20 in Jefferson.
“That’s been our message this whole week post-Christmas. Everything we are doing, all of that is focused on region duals,” Greyhounds head coach Adam Gillhouse said. “Whether it’s inside or out of the wrestling room, the key for us to focus – to put blinders on with us getting ready to wrestle Locust Grove, Ola and everybody else in the region.”
Part of that focus came last weekend when Jones County made a last-minute schedule shuffle. JCHS was initially set to travel to Lexington, S.C., for its next tournament following Christmas, but due to multiple teams there backing out due to illness, the Greyhounds opted for last weekend’s two-day event at West Laurens, featuring 20 teams, including a state champion in AAA from last year, Columbus, as well as West Laurens, Perry and Dublin.
“Just finding really good, quality matches is the goal now, to find the most matches we can to get the most bang for our buck,” Gillhouse said.
One reason to seek so many matches? To get a better picture of who is performing the best and who might be able to move up or down a weight class to fine tune Jones County’s lineup for later in January.
“We’re as deep as we’ve been, and that’s a good problem to have,” Gillhouse said. “You’re not necessarily looking for the best one in each weight class, but it’s more about finding our best 14 and seeing how our strengths match up with other teams’ weaknesses to help us put our best 14 out there.”
The end goal? Coming up with the lineup to present to best chance to win dual matches on Jan 13 against the rest of the region, teams that although JCHS has not faced that much this year, they are still able to keep track of.
“We’re constantly looking to see where their guys are, how they are doing in certain weigh classes,” Gillhouse said. “We monitor that closely and try to put our guys where we think they’ll be.”
