GREYHOUND GRAPPLERS
For the past few years, a key weekend on the Greyhounds’ wrestling schedule has been the Yellow Jacket Duals in Hazelhurst, an event that’s viewed as showing where Jones County stands as a team.
In a field of 28 teams, the Greyhounds showed that they rate rather well. JCHS took first place in the two-day tournament, winning every dual match on the way to the big weekend.
“It’s a lot of the same teams there every year, and you wrestle a lot of matches in a short amount of time. You basically wrestle nine dual matches in 24 hours,” Greyhounds head coach Adam Gillhouse said. “It’s even harder than state duals will be, not necessarily the teams we’ll wrestle, but how much you will wrestle. So, it’s kind of a tune-up for that. It’s good to see so much competition from all over the state, especially the southeast part.”
It was also a milestone day for a pair of JCHS grapplers with Jackson Brown and Aiden Lipford winning their 100th career matches for the Greyhounds.
“That’s just exciting for those two guys,” Gillhouse said. “I remember them as freshmen when I was still an assistant, and to see how far they have come in four years, that’s a testament to their dedication.”
The Greyhounds’ success in Hazelhurst began within the pool of teams they were placed with. There, they beat Coahulla Creek 36-33, Toombs County 45-30, Benedictine 52-27, Brantley County 50-27, Calvary Day 60-21 and 81-0 against Bacon County.
“In our four duals on Friday, we didn’t wrestle really well,” Gillhouse said. “On Saturday against Toombs, we wrestled really hard and then against Benedictine, they had just played football on Friday but were very tough and physical.”
That showing put JCHS in the tournament’s gold bracket, where the Greyhounds rose to the occasion, starting with an easy 61-18 win against Effingham County en route to being the class of the field with wins against Pierce County and Brunswick.
Top performers for JCHS included Landon Lewis, Hunter McCleskey, David Little, Robert Scott, Landon Pittman, Brown, Arrie Martin, Garrett Green and Lipford.
“It was really good to see how the guys responded. Everyone is tired by the of the last day because everyone is so exhausted,” Gillhouse said. “It was good to see how they responded and wrestled.”
Jones County’s showing included a trio of freshmen getting into the mix – Landon Pittman, Hunter Hardwick and Alex Hammond.
“They all wrestled really hard,” Gillhouse said. “They picked up lots of wins for us along the way. We’re blessed with some depth right now. Alex, he learned a lot and I think he was excited to go down there, wrestle and have some success.”
Jones County claimed firstplace showings in the tournament’s JV bracket as well with freshman Luke McCoy and eighth graders Noah Pieterick and Nate Wilson also taking first.
