THE 12 Greyhounds advance to sectionals, Hardwick and Pieterick win region titles
When the Greyhounds’ hopes of a state duals berth fell short a few weeks ago, Jones County reached a proverbial path diverged in the woods.
Saturday’s region traditional tournament showed that they have the one filled with a desire to not end the season quietly. A total of 12 JCHS wrestlers qualified for this Saturday’s sectional round at Cambridge by virtue of top-four finishes at the region tournament held at Union Grove. Not only that, Noah Pieterick and Hunter Hardwick came away from the day as region champions as Jones County finished second overall to defending state traditional champion Ola.
The goal going into this weekend is simple for the Greyhounds, where a top-four individual finish at sectionals earns a berth in the GHSA state traditional tournament Feb. 13-15 at the Macon Coliseum.
They will have plenty of contenders to do that after the showing in the region tournament, where Jones County got second-place finishes from Hunter McCleskey at 120 pounds, Shooter Lumley at 138, Arrie Martin at 150 and David Little at 157.
In addition to a fourth-place finish by John Rackley at 144 pounds to advance to sectionals, multiple JCHS grapplers showed a will to battle back throughout the proceedings en route to finishing third. Dawson Walker closed strong with two wins to finish third at 106 pounds.
Nate Wilson won his final four matches to take third in the 132-pound division with Jacob Skinner and Luke Thompson taking third following a 2-0 close to their day at 190 and 215 pounds. Barrett Rosenberger had a similar result, getting a pair of late wins to move to the third-place match where he won via forfeit.
