After months of waiting, the Jefferson Mat Dragons are ready to get the quest for their next set of titles underway.
Last year, Jefferson recorded their eighth straight State Dual title, as well as their 13th Traditional State title to give them 21 state titles in history.
Now, the Mat Dragons will look to add to that total in the new season, which kicks off Friday with the Panther Invitational at JCCHS.
Jefferson coach Doug Thurmond said that the team’s approach will be the same as it has been in the past.
“Hard work, with the kids putting in the time and dedication,” he said. “We did several things this summer, including summer league and going to camp in preparation. A lot of guys are stepping up to fill
some pretty big shoes from some of the guys we lost. We’re just kind of going back to the drawing board and getting ready to kick it off.”
With five seniors on the team this year, Thurmond said their leadership is very important to the team.
“We want them to take their senior season very serious and understand that it’s their last shot, but also that they have a lot to live up to with expectations. They’ve been around for a while, so they know what we expect, they just have to step up.”
Thurmond said that despite starting the season on Friday, he doesn’t think his team will be up to par yet. That’s because several of his wrestlers are just off of the Dragons’ successful football season and just out of Thanksgiving holidays. But, he said, he just wants his team to be moving in the right direction and getting ready.
“We don’t want to peak anytime soon, we want to peak in January at the Duals and February at the Traditionals,” he said. “We’ve just got to get everybody in the right weight class and I don’t know that they’ll be there this weekend. And nobody was any happier and tickled more of our football season than me. I was very pleased with how our football team did and Coach McFerrin did a great job. We’ll take our guys when we get them, whenever they’re done with football.”
Thurmond said those wrestlers just coming in from football will have to hit the ground running.
“Football shape and wrestling shape are two totally different things. Any of the guys that do it can tell you that. You can’t wait on them. They pretty much understand if they’ve been doing it what to expect when they hit the room.”
Thurmond said at a school like Jefferson, programs have to share their athletes.
“We get along pretty good about that around here,” he said. “It’s kind of a good situation. We want the kids to enjoy everything that they can and they so desire to, so that kind of works out good.”
For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of The Jackson Herald.
