In their first trip ever to the East Class 5A Regional, the Newcastle Racers wrestling squad came home from Pryor finishing in 5th place as a team, but winning two first places, a second place, and a fourth and a sixth.
Seniors Blake Johnson (175 lbs.) and Randy Nix (215 lbs.) brought home the gold, while junior Shane Lovejoy (165 lbs.) placed second, Max Rinehart (150 lbs.) placed fourth, and Jaxon Mitchell (144 lbs.) placed sixth.
Coach Zach Hale said, “We did very well all things considered. It was a long two hour and 45 minute bus ride there, but the Racers showed up to wrestle.”
Hale said the team felt that they would do well going East instead of West this year, “and things paid off.” The Racers had three freshmen in the Regionals line-up and this was one of the biggest tournaments they had ever been to, so nerves may have gotten to most of them.
“But our veteran wrestlers wrestled well in all the rounds,” Hale said.
He added that freshman Jaxon Mitchell started the tourney with an 8-7 victory over the 3 seed from Tulsa Edison. In the 5th place match, Mitchell came up against the same wrestler and lost in the third period. Hale said in that match, the fifth place winner qualifies for State, and the sixth place winner is the alternate.
“Out of the 13 wrestlers we were able to take, going into the last round on Friday evening, all but three wrestlers had a loss, meaning one more loss and they were out of the tournament,” Hale said. “We went 7-1 in matches that last round, so we were very pleased that we still had 10 wrestlers competing on the second day.”
Collinsville took the first place team finish, while Pryor had second place, and Coweta had third place.
The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association State Wrestling Championships are Friday and Saturday at the Oklahoma City State Fair Arena. Johnson, Nix, Lovejoy and Rinehart will be competing, and Mitchell is an alternate.
