The Jackson County Mat Panthers will be heading to the state duals this weekend after taking second in the area duals over the weekend.
The state duals will be held Friday and Saturday in Macon.
The Mat Panthers defeated Archer 70-12, and then moved on to defeat Oconee County 48-24 in the semi-final round.
Jackson County then just missed in the finals, losing to Eastside 28-26. They then had to face Morgan County in a match for true second, which the Mat Panthers won 46-24.
Individually, Izzy Carrillo-Garcia went 4-0 with two pins. Jamari Davis went 4-0 with four pins. Charles Smothers went 4-0 with three pins. Ryan Howe went 4-0 with three pins. Zach Moore went 2-2 on the weekend. Connor Andreason went 1-3. D.J. Ledford went 3-1. Jacob Hogan went 0-2. Ryan Shekey went 3-1. Justin Brewer went 3-1. Tre’ Horton went 3-1 with two pins and a technical fall. Daivon Ledford went 2-2. Cody Atkins went 1-0. Austin McDonald went 3-1. Josh Spanks went 0-4.
“I feel like we wrestled very well as a team in three out of our four matches, but didn’t wrestle as a team in the match that mattered the most,” said coach Jason Powers. “Charles Smothers came up with a big win over Eastside’s Dalton Temple that I thought was the turning point of the match. After that match, I felt really good about winning the dual, as this is one of the matches that I had picked that could change the outcome of the dual. However, we did not pick up some pins where I thought we should’ve and we lost a couple of matches that we shouldn’t have lost and that cost us the Area championship.
“I still feel like we are the better team, but we were not the better team on Saturday when it counted.”
Powers said that after the Eastside match, the team was really down on themselves, but managed to pull together for a win against Morgan County that would send one or the other to the state tournament.
“We still have the opportunity to wrestle for the state dual title and that is our ultimate goal,” Powers said. “We have to put this past weekend’s performance behind us and use it as fuel to work hard throughout the week to be a better team as a whole going into the state tournament.”
For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of The Jackson Herald or The Braselton News.
