By Ken Lay
Halls High School’s boys wrestling team found itself in familiar territory Thursday night. The road, to get to the District 3-AA Duals Championship, however, was a bit more difficult.
But the Red Devils ended the evening as the district champions as they routed West High, 64-12, in the title match at Halls High School.
“The season has been difficult. We’ve had injuries, and we’ve had illness,” Halls coach Shannon Sayne said. “Tonight was the first time that we had our whole team together.
“We wrestled some tough competition, and we don’t stay around Knoxville, and it paid off this year, and it always does.”
The Red Devils, who advanced to the district championship match with a 72-6 victory over Powell in the semifinals, darted ahead of the Rebels early.
Halls won a pair of bouts by forfeit as Noah Lance, who competes in the 106-pound weight class, and Kizer Meek (165 pounds) both won without having to take to the mat.
In the 113-pound bout, Tanner Kitts pinned West High’s Alex De La Cruz in 1 minute, 23 seconds. At 120, Caden Acuff pinned Malachi Clark in just 28 seconds to give the Red Devils an 18-0 lead.
Halls’ Mason Robinson (126), Byron Whaley, Parker Suffridge (144), Trevor Sexton (157) and Jake Glenn (285) all earned wins by fall for the Red Devils.
Boaz Whaley won by technical fall, earning a 23-8 win over Cole Tidwell in 4:25. Barrett Whaley also won by technical fall for the Red Devils.
In the 150-pound bout, West High’s Kolton Rose defeated Cayden Robinson, 15-12, in overtime.
West’s Hussein Fadhil (190) earned a decision victory, and the Rebels’ Ahmed Shahin (215) scored a pin in 46 seconds over Gavin Self.
Rebels’ coach Ben Carey was pleased with his team’s effort.
“We feel really good,” Carey said. “A lot of these guys started wrestling when they were freshmen, so they’ve only been wrestling for two years.
“We won some close matches tonight and that was really good.”
West advanced to the district title match with a 59-24 win over Oak Ridge in the semifinals.
Both the Red Devils and Rebels advanced to the Region 2-AA Duals at Hardin Valley Academy on Wednesday.
The Hawks were the District 4-AA Championship and Farragut was second in the district standings. The regular season ended Thursday night with HVA, Maryville and the Admirals.
HVA took first place via a tie-breaker, and Farragut was awarded the second-place finish after winning the tie-breaker against Blount County’s Rebels.
