Despite not having a full lineup for a variety of reasons, Arlington James Martin High School won the team title on Saturday the the Reece’s Warrior Invitational.
The newly named tournament hosted at Arlington ISD Athletic Center is the home tournament for the Warriors — the defending Class 6A champions.
The Warriors finished with 246 points, ahead of Conroe The Woodlands College Park, which had 212 points. Melissa took third with 172, while Cache, Oklahoma, was fourth with 131.
The win was big for Martin, which lost 33-31 to College Park in a dual last week.
“We will see them a lot more in the season,” Martin’s Isaak Arevalo said. “The first week we got humbled. We just came off winning the state championship and in our first dual, we lost. We won last year but that was last year.”
Eight Martin wrestlers made the finals and six of them took home first place, wearing teal singlets with a photo of Reece Shepard on the back, honoring the late little sister of a former wrestler.
It was likely the Warriors would’ve had more in the finals if things had worked out better.
Ryan Rainey (190) and Ezequiel Valadez (132) both wrestled some matches but medical forfeited out of the tournament. Rainey, third last year at state, went 2-0 before getting hurt before the quarterfinal round. Valadez, fourth at state last year, went 2-0 and made the semifinals before pulling out.
Defending state champion Grayson Carpenter (165) failed to make weight on day two and had to forfeit before the semifinal.
Then, the Warriors had three other open weights.
That put pressure to perform in the finals and the Warriors did. In the 106-pound title, Kyntrell ‘KT’ Ellis won with a pin against College Park’s Nick Payne.
