The Mens Junior Greco National Duals team began their tournament yesterday. The National Duals tournament is always a highlight of the summer, 38 teams representing 29 states have all come to the Cox Convention Center in Tulsa Oklahoma in the hopes of becoming the best Greco team in the nation. This Georgia team is well rounded and has multiple state champions and state placers on it. These boys should be able to compete at a high level and represent this great state well.
Teams for this tournament were placed into one of 4 pools in day 1. Each pool will wrestle through a bracket style tournament to find where they placed 1-8. Depending on how each team finished in their pool they will then be placed in a round robin pool on day 2. The top 2 teams from each pool will go into the gold/silver pool, 3rd and 4th will go to the bronze/copper pool and so on and so forth until everyone is placed into a day 2 pool.
Team Georgia was placed in Pool B along with 9 other teams, the first dual of the day was Ohio Red in the quarterfinals. To make a long story short, Ohio Red came ready for this competition and showed our boys from the south no mercy. Ohio Red dominated from start to finish, winning by a score of 57-8. It is worth noting that Georgia’s lone win came by forfeit from Ohio. Its better not to dwell on the depressing, lets take a look at the consolation side of the bracket.
Once on the conso side, it did not get much better for Team Georgia. We had a close dual with North Dakota with each team going on small streaks to build a lead and then see it get close again. Back and forth it went until the final 5 matches where North Dakota won 4 out of the last 5 sealing the win 40-31.
In the final match of the day, Team Georgia took on Alabama for the 7th and 8th place position in pool B. Unfortunately this was more of the same for our Georgia boys as Alabama manhandled us from start to finish. Cody Parent was the only Georgia wrestler to earn a win, the majority of the other points came from a forfeit from Alabama. Our neighbors to the west won this dual in dominating fashion 56-12.
Needless to say it was a disappointing day for Team Georgia, but tomorrow is a new day and new opportunity to put our best foot forward. Hopefully we have gotten all of the losses out of our system and will start a winning streak.
Day 2:
Team Georgia was place in the Yellow/Green pool after finishing in 8th place in Pool B. The Yellow/Green pool is made up of the other teams who finished in 7th and 8th place from their respective pools from day 1. Each pool on day 2 is an 8 team round robin pool style bracket that is split into 2 pools of 4. Each team will wrestle through the 3 matches in their smaller pool and then finish the tournament with a crossover match with their counterpart from the other 4 team pool. For example, if a team goes 3-0 in their 4 man round robin pool, they will face the other team that went 3-0 in the opposite pool to see who is the overall winner for the yellow/green pool.
Team Georgia started the day with Louisiana Blue. Fortunately, as we had hoped, Team Georgia started the day on a positive note. Although it was touch and go in the beginning and Team Georgia was looking like it hadn’t quite found its groove yet, the back half of the lineup saved the day coming in with 4 straight tech falls and a forfeit to win in convincing fashion 42-15.
The second dual of the day was against Ohio Blue. Even though we gave up 3 forfeits Team Georgia was never really in this dual. This was total domination for Ohio Blue from start to finish. Jack Godbee and Ian Stephens were the only two Georgia wrestlers to win against Ohio Blue. Team Georgia lost in convincing fashion by a score of 58-12.
The final dual in the round robin portion of this Yellow/Green pool was against Texas Red. This was probably the most entertaining dual of the tournament since it came down to the wire and required Team Georgia to go on a run at the end in order to win. Both teams gave up 3 forfeits so this one would come down to matches wrestled. Texas Red had a lead but Team Georgia came back and won the final 4 matches with 2 forfeits, 1 tech fall, and 1 decision to win the dual 37-32.
Going 2-1 in the pool play round means Team Georgia would wrestle for 3rd and 4th place in the Yellow/Green pool. Our counterpart from the other pool of 4 was Tennessee. Tennessee also finished 8th in pool D and had a 2-1 record in pool play on day 2 as well. Tennessee started the dual by picking up 6 wins in the first 10 matches giving them a slight lead. Team Georgia picked up the next 2 matches to narrow the lead for Tennessee, the score was 26-28 in favor of Tennessee. Tennessee would not be denied in the end though, winning the final 3 matches of the dual, each by tech fall. Tennessee finished with a score of 40-26 to put Team Georgia in 4th place for the Yellow/Green pool.
Overall Team Georgia went 2-5 for the greco tournament finishing 8th in Pool B, and 4th in the Yellow/Green pool. Georgia finished 28th out of 37 teams.
We did not feel that anyone wrestled well enough or was dominant enough to be considered a hammer for this tournament.
You can find the brackets for this disaster of a tournament here.
Pony Boy Wrestling 