Gordon Lee wins Middle School State Duals
Middle school wrestling teams from all over the state, representing high schools in all seven of Georgia’s classifications, recently converged at North Hall High School for the Middle School State Duals Championship.
And in the end, Gordon Lee topped them all.
After finishing second to North Hall a year ago, Gordon Lee earned their rematch against the other set of Trojans in the finals, pulling out a 42-36 victory to take home the tournament’s biggest trophy.
“It was a fun tournament,” GLMS head coach Bret Bradford said. “There are some good rivalries that we’re part of down there, but there’s also a lot of mutual respect. I keep running into a lot of the same coaches in the later rounds of this thing and those guys understand how tough it is to be consistently competitive in a tournament that combines all divisions, 1A through 7A.”
Teams in the tournament were placed into two pools with the top two finishing teams in each pool advancing to the semifinals. Each team in the tournament was also allowed to pick up three wrestlers from other schools and extra weight classes are added.
“In the tournament director’s own words, he said this (pick-up) rule was put in place to give elite wrestlers that do not wrestle for competitive teams the chance to wrestle in the state duals with the best teams in the state,” Bradford explained.
Gordon Lee rolled through their pool matches, taking out Commerce (63-27), Lambert (84-9), West Forsyth (90-6) and North Gwinnett (87-12). Commerce High School are the current kings of Class 1A wrestling, while Lambert, West Forsyth and North Gwinnett High Schools are all in Class 7A.
The Trojans drew Pope in the semifinals. The Greyhounds, whose high school team collected three traditional and three state duals titles between 2011 and 2014, didn’t have enough to slow down Gordon Lee, who advanced to the finals with a 54-26 win.
That set up the showdown with the host team, who were backed by a large contingent of fans.
Wil Tumblin lost the opener at 70 pounds after getting pinned by Jacob Voyles, a pick-up from Banks County, but the the score would be tied after Sonoraville pick-up Cole Hunt (77) got Gordon Lee on the
board by pinning Simon Seid. Bryce James (84) followed up with a minor decision against Commerce pick-up Dawson Thompson.
Penn Askew (91) earned a forfeit to add to Gordon Lee’s lead, but Eli Knight (98), a pick-up from Sonoraville, lost a minor decision to Damon Campbell 15-9 and Troy Plemons (105) dropped a minor decision to Christian Contreras, cutting the lead down to 15-12.
At 112, Caleb Henson, a pick-up from Cartersville, earned a minor decision over Jacob Pedraza to increase the lead to 1812, but Cade Peterson (120) would get pinned by C.J. Murphy, a pickup from Pickens, to knot the score at 18.
Garrison Dendy (128) pinned Kaden Howard, but Logan Butler (135) would lose a minor decision to Memfiz Dyer. Dylan Crawford (144) got six important points for Gordon Lee by sticking Will Adams to keep the team in front, 30-21.
North Hall would answer in the next two bouts to tie the score. Kameron Oliver (152) lost minor decision to Tyler Ken-Hardin and when Jackson Moore (160) was pinned by Dalton Battle, the match was deadlocked at 30 with three bouts to go.
But it wouldn’t stay that way. Cody Thomas was given a forfeit win at 175 and Dylan Burnett came through at 200 by pinning Pierce Barnes to give Gordon Lee an insurmountable 42-30 lead. North Hall won the final bout as Patton Brooks pinned Garrett Morton at 265.
“We knew they were really tough down low, but we’re really tough low too, so we just hoped we could come out of the first seven matches with any kind of lead,” Bradford said. “Bryce won a huge match for us at against one of their pick-ups, a multi-time state champion and national champion. We felt like we had the advantage in the upper weights, so we just needed to hold them off in the middle.
“I felt like we had it sealed up after (sixth grader) Dylan Crawford got us a pin. After that, they needed to pin everybody up to 200 and 265 where they knew they were gonna run into Burnett and Morton. Those two are both three-year starters and they’ve closed the door on a lot of teams over the years. Kameron Oliver went out and did his job, kept it safe and lost a minor, and the big boys brought it home.
Bradford said losing to North Hall last year was plenty of motivation to get back to the finals this time around.
“I wasn’t disappointed in that lost last year because I knew we lost to a team that was better than us and deserved to be the champions,” he continued. “It gave us something to work toward and that’s been the goal ever since then.
We haven’t lost a dual meet since those state finals last year and we got another chance to compete against the team that beat us. We were in their home gym again with lots of fans and it was loud and exciting, but my boys stepped up and wrestled big in a big match and got it done.
“I also don’t think there’s a better time to thank my assistant coach. Gordon Lee wrestling owes a lot to Lee Dendy and this doesn’t happen without him.”
Gordon Lee swept the NGAC Traditional and Duals this year.