PCHS wrestling finishes season with top spots

The Pike County High School wrestling team ended the season with several big wins, going 2-2 in the State Dual Tournament to advance to the consolation quarter finals and putting the team in the top 8 in the state of Georgia in AAA.’This is the best performance of a Pike wrestling team at the State Dual tournament,’ said coach Clay Woerner. ‘One of the captains of the team, junior John Lovett remains undefeated on the year at 35-0. Others with good records include senior captains Logan Sage, Mason Gilham and Cole Woerner. Brandon Holloway and Mat Hale also have good records. The team has also gotten a lot of help from its underclassman freshman Gage Lee, Luke Woerner and Jakilen King along with sophomores Cooper Jones and Dawson Guest.’PCHS hosted the AAA Traditional Tournament Friday and Saturday at the high school gym, earning second place. ’The team wrestled about as good as they could have wrestled but just lacked the depth we needed,’ said coach Clay Woerner. ‘We lost some of our lower weight wrestlers earlier so we lacked the depth that Stone Mountain who also won the Area Duals had. Both Stone Mountain and Pike County finished in the top 8 of the State Duals two weeks ago in Macon, representing Area AAA well.The Pirates had eight wrestlers in the finals this Saturday and two in the consolation finals.’Dexter Garner our heavy weight would have also placed high, but suffered an ankle injury in the semi-finals,’ said Woerner. Jessica Bell finished fourth at the 106 weight. Two sophomores Cooper Jones and Dawson Guest both finished third in the Area tournament. Two freshmen contributed big time with wins over opponents who had beaten them earlier in the year. Gage Lee ended up first and Luke Woerner ended up second. Matt Hale, a junior, probably had the toughest weight class in the tournament and ended up as an Area runner-up.Four seniors and a junior rounded out the rest of the champions and they included Brandon Holloway, Cole Woerner, John Lovett, Mason Gilham and Logan Sage. That makes at least a two time Area Champs for Cole, John, Mason and Logan who are also the team captains. John Lovett is currently still undefeated on the season which is a first for Pike County. The team will host the sectional tournament this Friday and Saturday. The girls sectionals will start at 11:50 a.m. Friday. The girls will be combined with single A and the top two in each weight will advance to the state. The boys will start after the girls but not before 4:30 p.m. Twenty-four teams will be represented in sectionals this weekend at Pike County and more once the A girls are included for the girls sectionals. The top two girls advance to the state and the top six boys will advance.The JV Pirates recently competed in the Wildcat J.V. Brawl recently and won the tournament. Those placing in the tournament included Ben Earls and Kaden Norris. Armond Watson earned fourth place, Rylee Gordon and Dexter Garner earned third place and William Lemachs earned second place. First place winners from the tournament included Luke Woerner, Cooper Jones, Dawson Guest, Jakilen King and Kevin Godwin.Â