The Starr’s Mill’s varsity wrestling team hosted the Panther Invitational, which ended last night after the paper went to press, and competed in the Brookwood Invitational last weekend. The Panthers placed third and had five wrestlers place in the top six. Cory Radcliffe (140) placed first overall, while Brandon Witta (145), Jeff Partlow (215) and Bradley Conner (279) placed second and Patrick Waters (112) placed fourth.

The McIntosh High School varsity wrestling team placed fourth at the Falcon Duals at Pebblebrook High School in Cobb County last Saturday. The Chiefs finished 3 – 2 on the day beating Osborne 63 – 18, Alexander 50 – 27 and North Springs 59 – 12. McIntosh dropped their matches against Lovett 27 – 46 and Pebblebrook 36 – 41.

“I am happy with our showing in the Tournament,” said Coach Nick Bellantoni. “When I consider that we gave up 18 points to each team at the start because of injuries and unexpected scratches, we had a good day.”

The Chiefs were led by Senior and Co-Captain Matt Penn (145) who had five wins and no losses on the day, with two pins. Sophomore Richard Hughes (112) also went 5 – 0 with three pins.

Alan Sarvis (119), Matt Bozone (130), Scott Ritter (171) and Matt Carroll (189) all had four wins and one loss, each with three pins. Jarrod Chamblee (103) and Landis Ford (152) were also 4 – 1 during the tournament.

Jessy Toscano (125) and Brett Buehler each had 3 wins and 2 losses and one pin. Jonathan Smith (275) finished the day at 2-3 with one pin.

“The match statistics show that we won over 75 percent of the matches we wrestled today. That makes me happy,” said Bellantoni. “But we have got to continue to focus on cutting down on the number of mistakes we are making. There were at least five matches that we lost today because of mental mistakes. As a team we have the skills, but to break through to the championship rounds in Tournaments like the Falcon Duals you can’t afford to make the mistakes we did today.”

The two most exciting matches of the day both came against Alexander and were major decisions. Chamblee won his match 20 – 9 and then Bozone beat his Alexander opponent 22 – 8.

“Tournaments like these are a real test for the team because we wrestle five matches in one day. The wrestlers endurance is tested, it gets really tough by time you get deep into the fourth and then into the fifth match, “Bellantoni added. “We need days like this to test our toughness.”

The Chiefs wrestled at the Dacula High School Falcon Duals in Gwinnett County yesterday.

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