Bulldogs celebrate district title, ready for regionals

Credit: Contributed Photo

The Marianna High School wrestling team accepts the District Championship trophy in Wewa last weekend.

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By: Dustin Kent | Jackson County Floridan
Published: February 08, 2012

The Marianna Bulldogs wrestling team claimed a district championship over the weekend at Wewahitchka High School, edging out the Bozeman Bucks for the first league title for the school since 1999.

Marianna won with a team score of 160 to Bozeman’s 140, and the Bulldogs had 12 wrestlers qualify for the regional meet Friday and Saturday in Green Cove Springs.

Bulldogs coach Ron Thoreson said that winning the district was a goal of the team’s since the start of the season, and realizing that goal was a dream come true.

“It was huge. It’s something that hadn’t been done here in 13 years,” the coach said. “With the group of kids that we’ve got, it speaks a lot for how hard they’ve worked and how dedicated they’ve been and focused on that goal that they set for themselves at the beginning of the season.

“They’ve learned how to set a goal, work for that goal, and achieve that goal. It’s huge for the outgoing seniors to be a part of a district championship team, and it’s huge for the freshmen and sophomores to be a part of the beginning of what we hope is a re-occurring thing for us.”

Dalton Hendrix at 170 pounds and Jameson Maddox at 126 pounds gave the Bulldogs their only two district champions, while Chris Warf (132), Devin Combs (138), Pascal Hample (145), and Alex Winskey (220) all finished second.

Gavin Hall (182) and Antron Johnson (285) both took third, while Tyler Helms (113), Edwin Velez (120), Ren Stewart (160), and Greg Screen (195) were all fourth.

All of those kids will move on to the regional meet, which Thoreson said was a very big step up in competition.

“The reality is I’m only taking two kids with regional experience in Dalton and Alex. For everybody else it will be a brand new experience for them. I’m hoping to put three or four at state, but we’ll have to see what happens. I feel like we’re prepared for it. That’s the reason we wrestled in bigger tournament against bigger schools, so that they could have exposure against that level of competition. Hopefully, we’ve done enough to prepare them for the step up.”