This weekend marks the next chapter in the history of the Jefferson Dragons wrestling team.
The defending Class A Duals and Traditional champs will start their 2008-09 campaign on Friday with the Panther Invitational at Jackson County Comprehensive High School, and hope to get their season off to a strong start.
Jefferson coach Doug Thurmond says the season is here, but he’s waiting to see if his team is 100-percent ready.
“We’re probably not going to be in wrestling shape because several of our football players went so long into the season,” Thurmond said. “That was a good thing for the football team, but it will take us a little while to get into wrestling shape.”
Thurmond says there’s not really much the team can do to try to make up for lost time.
“A lot of it has to do with mat time, and there’s not really anything you can do to make up for that,” he said. “We’ll just deal with it for now, and just do the best we can until we can get them in the shape we need them in.”
The Mat Dragons return to action without three of their starters from last year. Two of their senior wrestlers graduated last year, while a third starter chose not to wrestle this year.
“We’ve got some good young players, and some kids that we hope will step up in these places,” Thurmond said.
One big scare for the wrestling team came during the final football game of the season, when it appeared that senior Patrick Allen might have broken his ankle late in the first half of the game.
But it actually turned out that Allen suffered only some strained ligaments, and could wrestle as early as this weekend.
Thurmond said the news came as a very big relief.
“They really missed Patrick in the second half of that ball game, and it would be about the same for us without him.”
Thurmond said starting the season off at the Panther Invitational is a good early test for the team.
“It will let everybody get their feet wet, and let the coaches know where we stand,” he said, adding that Coach Bob Gurley is back with the team this year, along with a new coach, Lee Roper.
“It will answer some of the questions for us as to where some of the younger kids are that are having to step up.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Mat Dragons from there. They follow up this weekend’s Panther Invitational with a very hard Dual tournament on Dec. 12 at Forsyth Central High School, the Sawnee Mountain Duals, which will include a lot of state and tough 5-A teams.
“We hit the ground running,” Thurmond said. “For the first couple of weeks, you just try to get your team solidified, and try to find the weight classes that best fits your team.
“That’s what we want to do, find where our best line up is for the team, as well as individually.”
Once they get that sorted out, there’s no doubt that the Mat Dragons will work hard to zero in on another championship season.
