TexasWrestling
Words By Head Coach Troy Jewell
This team showed a lot of character, especially in the freestyle tournament. There were a handful of guys that signed onto the trip to only wrestle one style, but stepped up and filled in for their teammate anyways. In camp we talked about being accountable to themselves and to each other. By the time the freestyle started we had a lot of guys banged up. Daniel Leal of CC Veterans Memorial wrestled the whole tournament with a strained hip flexor, Jordan Haskins of Lewisville a bad shoulder, many others extremely sore and beat up. By the last day not all of them wanted to be back out there, so we went back over our discussion from camp and reminded ourselves why we were there and how we wanted to feel after the tournament. They sucked it up and pushed through, many of them wrestling their best matches in the last round against Nebraska! It definitely got physical up on the big stage and Texas got the team win. Exceptional performances by many of them, Alexander Jacob’s came along as an alternate and wrestled up at 160 pounds the entire tournament against some monsters. He continued to step it up and had some success there. Jesse Diaz from Tascosa, a huge contributor to the team this year. DeAndre Ruckers from Klein Collins also got some key wins at 195. Tristan Baugher of Prosper, sealing the deal against Florida in the last match of the dual against a legit greco guy. There were many others, the two 113 pounder’s from Dumas Axle Hernandez and Jesse Martinez really stepped it up, and after a rough start the young Trey Reed of Euless Trinity at 106 manage to get a couple of wins himself.
Mason Kruljak of College Station A&M Cons was an absolute hammer in the freestyle going 4-0 .
Highland Parks Aiden Connor , who came off the bench after Sean Delmonte of Rockwall suffered a possible concussion and went undefeated. In the comeback win against Florida we told him we needed the pin to seal the team victory and he went out and got it.
Dominic Chavez of Arlington Martin only receiving one forfeit , teched or pinned every opponent in the first period . He put on a clinic out there this week, it was fun to watch.
Katy’s Daniel Manibog kept the ball rolling from the Greco tournament right through the freestyle . He went undefeated , also teched or pinned every opponent.
