Two more conference contests are in the books for Panther wrestling.
On Tuesday, Dec. 12, the Mat Cats traveled to Sylva for a three-team Mountain Seven meet, wrestling their official conference matches with Smoky Mountain and East Henderson. Versus two strong programs with clear numerical advantages over Franklin, the small, inexperienced team was defeated in both contests.
“[It was] a light week compared to most for the Mat Cats,” said Panther head coach Coley Tyler, still in the process of building the team’s roster in his second year. “We did not wrestle our best yesterday and continue to be wildly inconsistent as a collective.”
After watching Smoky and East face off in the first match of the evening, Franklin took the mat versus East for men’s and women’s dual team contests. There, senior Miguel Diaz dominated the 215-lb. weight class, pinning the Eagles’ Aurelio Martin just 17 seconds into the match. Despite this and a second-period pin by Jeffry Casale at 165, the Panthers fell 48-30.
“This was the best chance we’ve had to win a conference dual since I took over, but we fell short in two weight classes,” said Tyler. “We should have won both matches; however haphazard technique and letting fatigue curb our aggressiveness and initiative kept us from earning those victories.”
After the loss to East, Franklin retook the mat versus Smoky, which has built a massive team in both men’s and women’s competition. There, Diaz impressed once again, reversing a good-looking hold from Smoky’s Noah McKnight to pin McKnight in the second period. This and two more pins from Casale and Weston Alberry were Franklin’s only points of the contest, however.
“Even though this was our second match of the night we looked completely unprepared to wrestle,” said Tyler. “We had bad breakdowns in our fundamentals and technique, and even our wins were at times careless. Match discipline will be a focus for us for the rest of this year to try and clean this up and perform at a higher level consistently.”
Despite numbers and inexperience dampening their dual team prospects this year, multiple wrestlers continued strong individual seasons in Sylva. With three of their six official conference matches in the books this year, they continued their Mountain Seven schedule at Tuscola after press time Dec. 19.
“Jeffry and Miguel continue to find ways to win,” said Tyler. “It is not always pretty, but they never give up, and halfway through the conference slate they are poised for a good seed in the conference tournament if they keep it up.”
After dropping from 36 wrestlers in 2021-22 to just 14 in Tyler’s first season last year, the Mat Cats are still very much in the process of rebuilding their roster. In a conference full of strong programs including state title contenders Pisgah, Tyler says the team needs all the resources they can get.
“Fundraising continues to be a huge focus area for our program to provide a first-rate experience for our athletes,” said Tyler. “As a program we are trying to close a huge gap between us and other programs in the state to make wrestling a sport kids want to be a part of in our community. If anyone in the community would like to help they can reach out to the high school or on our Facebook or Instagram pages. We also have a fundraiser going through WeFund4U until 12/31/23.”
To donate, visit the team’s Facebook page at facebook.com/fhspantherwrestling and follow the link to wefund4u.com.