Following an extended period of inactivity aside from practices between weather events, the Avery wrestling team returned to the gym to begin in earnest the 2010 portion of its schedule.
On Wednesday evening Avery journeyed to
Victors in the Wednesday tangle included Lucas Lecka, who started the evening at 215 pounds and pinned Marcus DiCristino. In addition, Brock Yackey (119 pounds), Devin Buchanan (125 pounds), and Nick Malgadey (130 pounds) each earned wins by pin over their Cougar counterparts.
“Experience and forfeits is still a major deal for us. Our upper weights suffered a little bit but our lower weights came through with pins, and there’s not much more you can ask for,” Avery head wrestling coach Stacey Clark said after the dual meet. “
On Thursday evening Avery traveled to Ledger to make up a previously scheduled wrestling match with Mitchell. It was a rough go of it for the Big Red, as the squad fell 66-9 to a strong 1A Mountaineers.
The Vikings gained only two victories for the match, as Colton Blackburn won his match by second period pin at the heavyweight class and Brock Yackey defeated Colton McKinney by a 7-4 decision in the evening’s final bout at 125 pounds. Winners for the Mountaineers included Andrew Renfro, Serjio Littleton, Nate Brooks, Max Glenn, Steve Bomar,
“We didn’t match up well personnel-wise against Mitchell. Having Nick (Malgadey) wrestling at 125 pounds would have been a bigger advantage opposed to 130 pounds,” Coach Clark said after the matches. “I thought On Friday evening the wrestling squad took six grapplers to Robbinsville for the following day’s James Orr Memorial Invitational Tournament, also traditionally called the Far West Invitational.
Around a dozen schools of varying sizes sent teams to the southwestern corner of
Each Avery wrestler had the opportunity to wrestle a minimum of two matches during the tournament. Colton Blackburn wrestled hard in a pair of matches on Saturday morning, but came up short in the matches via pinfall, while teammate Kyle Greene finished with a 1-2 mark for the day, winning one match by forfeit and losing a narrow 7-4 decision in his final match of the tournament.
Each of the remaining four Vikings wrestlers competed in at least three matches and managed to gain at least a fourth-place finish. Devin Buchanan captured fourth place at 128 pounds, winning matches over Hayesville’s Paul Roach and Cherokee’s Billy Brady each by pin.
Viking senior Brock Yackey brought home a third place finish at the 122 pound weight class as he won three of his four matches on the day, the first by pinfall and the latter two by decision.
Avery placed a pair of grapplers in the Saturday evening championship matches. Nick Malgadey defeated Murphy’s Samuel McCoy to start the day and won by pin, then defeated McDowell’s Tyrell Burel by a 14-2 major decision. Nick was unable to capture the first-place medallion in the 133 pound classification, however, losing a hard fought bout to tournament champion Devin Nichols from West Wilkes.
Lucas Lecka also reached the championship match in the Orr Invitational, earning a second-place ribbon at the 218 pound class.
Lecka advanced to the championship semis with a forfeit victory and punched his ticket to the championship by pinning West Wilkes’ Cody Lefler. Lecka squared off with Colby White from host Robbinsville and wrestled a hotly contested match.
Lecka and White battled for three long periods and were tied at 3-3 with just five seconds left in the bout. White managed a takedown just before time expired to win by the bout score of 5-3.
“We brought the kids to the Robbinsville tournament as we continue to work on both team and individual successes in spite of not having a large number of wrestlers on the team,” Coach Clark said after the tournament. “The Far West let us get a good look at our regional competition and see what areas we need to work on. After three conference duals coming up this week, we’ll get some time between now and regionals to work on things we need to. I felt most of our guys wrestled to their ability to this point. I thought both of our guys wrestling in the finals made a couple of mistakes in their matches, but overall they wrestled to their ability and did well.”
The Vikings traveled to Owen on Tuesday for a dual meet, will journey to
