It was a busy Thanksgiving week for Panther wrestling.
After opening their season with a three-team home meet Nov. 16, the Mat Cats geared up for three away dates over the next six days. In a three-team meet at Robbinsville and individual tournaments at Swain and North Henderson, Coley Tyler’s team gained valuable experience against some of WNC’s best wrestlers.
“We had a little bit of success; we had some people win some matches,” said Tyler of the Maroon Devil Invitational at Swain Nov. 18. “I think for a lot of our younger kids, it was like drinking from a firehose in their first tournament experience with three mats going and lots of wrestling. ... We spent [time] teaching kids how to function in the tournament environment, like, ‘OK, do you know how to know when your match is?’ All of the things that are very unique to the tournament experience, a lot of that resposibility falls on the kid to warm up on their own, be ready to wrestle, know when they’re in the hole on deck, when they’re approaching that point, and where to be.”
As opposed to dual-team meets, where athletes wrestle in order according to weight class, large invitationals like the Maroon Devil hold simultaneous matches on multiple different mats. In addition to learning how to navigate a tournament schedule, the team’s eight freshmen and other first-year wrestlers got an up-close look at several strong programs.
“Enka was there again, we saw Fannin County [Georgia], Pisgah, North Henderson – a lot of solid programs from our end of the state were there, and it’s a great first tournament of the year,” said Tyler. “There’s a full spectrum of competition team-wise so you have the opportunity to most likely win a couple matches, but then you’ve also got some really stout competition as well.”
After the Maroon Devil Invitational, on Nov. 21 the team traveled to Robbinsville for a three-team meet with the host team and T.C. Roberson. There, they extended their early-season trial by fire against two more strong teams.
“Robbinsville fields high-quality, competitive teams year in and year out – always very good wrestlers from top to bottom,” said Tyler. “If you want to get there, if you want to wrestle at that level, those are the teams you need to surround yourself with in your schedule. T.C. is a very quality program as well and have really come on strong over the past couple years, and they’re solid from top to bottom as well. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be invited over to wrestle against those teams.”
While victories were few and far between in Graham County, highlighted by two overtime wins over Roberson, the experience gained versus two solid teams will come in handy throughout the Panthers’ season. The next night, Franklin met even more strong opponents at the North
Knights Individual Tournament.
“It was an outstanding tournament. I think there were 18 teams, and some very good programs,” said Tyler. “We unfortunately only had four of our boys and one of our girls for various reasons – Thanksgiving, injuries, sickness ... As a team we were not at all competitive just because of our numbers, but then I don’t know if it was maybe a hangover of sorts from Tuesday night wrestling T.C. and Robbinsville, but we just did not wrestle well.”
On the last day before Thanksgiving, the shorthanded Panthers faced an uphill climb. But while they didn’t earn the results they wanted, they did get an early look at their Mountain Seven Conference opponents.
“I think all of our conference competition was there other than Tuscola, and some of our kids got to see conference foes there so they know what to expect,” said Tyler. “Our first conference dual [meet] is [Nov. 28] and then they’re sprinkled in throughout the rest of the season, so they have an idea of what that conference lineup is gonna look like. It’s good to give them an idea so they can prepare.”
On Tom Raby Court after press time Tuesday, the team hosted Murphy and Mountain Seven powerhouse Pisgah in an Alumni Night clash. The meet with Pisgah served as Franklin’s first offical M7 contest of the season, one of six scheduled with each of their conference rivals throughout the winter.