It was a busy week for Panther wrestling.
After hosting their first and only home meet Dec. 9, Franklin hit the road again over the next several days, traveling to the gyms of two Mountain Eight Conference rivals. In matches at West Henderson and Brevard, the Panthers continued to round into midseason form.
“At Falcon Frenzy on the boys side, we had Garrett Young [in the 215-lb. weight class]; he was the champion. He kind of just eased right through the field like we thought he would, no real competition,” said head coach Jimmy Barnett of the annual tournament in Hendersonville Dec. 13. “Devlin Bailey finished fourth at heavyweight. He had some good competition, and wrestled the number one kid in [4A] from [East Gaston] … Weston Alberry finished fourth at 190, and did real well. The same kid beat him twice; that’s horrible, but it is what it is.”
After losing his first match to East Gaston’s Ben Sawyer, Alberry was relegated to the tournament’s consolation bracket, beating his next two opponents to advance to the third-place match. There he fell to Sawyer once again, but capped another strong day from Franklin’s top trio. On the girls side, a promising freshman continued an excellent year.
“At 126 we had Bri Dezarn. … I’ve had Bri around since seventh grade; she’s wrestled boys all the way through middle school and been pretty competitive against the boys,” said Barnett. “She just walked through that [tournament] down there; she pinned a girl in the first period in the finals that was 5-0 on the year, and we made a little side bet on that. She asked me, ‘If I win the finals, will you stop and let me get McDonald’s? [Assistant coach Matt Bailey] said he’s buying my McDonald’s if I win.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess if you win the finals we’ll stop at McDonald’s,’ so we had to stop at McDonald’s on the way home.”
In beating opponents from East Rutherford, Knoxville, and Laurens, South Carolina, Dezarn joined Young as Franklin’s only tournament winners of the day. Out of 21 teams at the tournament, Franklin placed ninth on the boys side and second on the girls, the Lady Panthers’ best result so far this year.
“We had three girls in the finals, which was awesome. We had Jessenia Canjiano at 107; she wrestled real well down there and got to the finals against a real good kid from East [Henderson],” said Barnett. “Then at 120 we had April Perez … I think April finished third. … The other finalist was Vayolet Centeno. She won her first match – there were only three girls in her weight class – but she got to the finals.”
“Justin Gonzalez at 126, Aaron Call at 132 and Branch Browning [at 144] all got around fifth or sixth. They went 2-2, so they had a good tournament and wrestled hard; they just lost [early-round matches], got put on the back side and had to wrestle their butts off. They wrestled well, but when you get put on that back side of the bracket every match could be your last one because it’s a win-or-go-home situation. So, you up the anticipation and wear yourself out real quick.”
Three nights later, they traveled to Brevard for a four-team meet with the Blue Devils, Hayesville and Walhalla, South Carolina. While Franklin still faces a challenge in dual team scoring due to lack of wrestlers, a pair of Panthers turned in memorable matches versus Hayesville.
“Sam Moore picked up a big [technical] fall by takedowns just taking the kid down and letting him up,” said Barnett of Moore’s win in the 138-lb. weight class, wherein wrestlers can end a match by building a 15-point lead. “Sam is very good at that. He played football, he knows how to tackle people and he gets after it. … I think he had eight takedowns in the match and tech’d the kid like 26-9, so he looked good.”
“Branch started out getting a good takedown and some back points, and then I don’t know what happened; all of a sudden, they just got in a skirmish. The kid got a reverse on him, and I mean he blatantly raked Branch’s eyeball and nose and almost fish-hooked him – we call it a fishhook when you stick a finger inside the mouth and yank. I mean he did everything to hit Branch’s face that you could do, but the referee was on the other side of them and did not see it. It kind of lit a fire under Branch, and then he started wrestling with aggression and went on and pinned the kid. That was the only kid that did not come over and shake our hands after the match, he was so mad.”