| By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
Way back when Bud Wilkinson was the football coach at Oklahoma and the
Sooners were a national power at one time running off 47 consecutive wins
once and adding another 31-game winning streak a couple of years later.
One of Oklahoma's opponent's coaches - Texas coach Darrell Royal, I think, said" "Oklahoma doesn't rebuild, it reloads."
That statement about reloading and not rebuilding has been carried over to
other teams that have strong reputations in the sport they are in.
One such team is the Calhoun County High School wrestling team where Mike
Stump no longer has rebuilding years.
He has "reloading" years.
This year's team has a dual record of 11-1 and a tournament record of 48-5
and is ranked in second place among Class AA-A schools, trailing only
perennial powerhouse (and a much larger school) Oak Glen.
Because of the prestige and level of play of the Red Devils they don't
wrestle at home much with no dual matches on the schedule and only one home
tournament.
That tournament is the 26th Annual Calhoun Invitational and it will take
place Saturday at Mount Zion with weigh-ins scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and
wrestling at 11 a.m.
This year the Red Devils will be joined by Ritchie, Clay, Braxton,
Sissonville, Wahama, Fayetteville, Greenbrier West, Berkeley Springs, Poca,
Ravenswood and perhaps the Parkersburg South B team.
Stumps calls it a good field and he is right since Calhoun, Greenbrier West
and Berkeley Springs are all ranked in the top 10 statewide and the
Parkersburg South B team would be ranked if it were in Class AA-A.
Calhoun has seven wrestlers with 20 or more wins already including 112-pound
Seth Jarvis (22-9); 119-pound Tyler Bain (20-5); 125-pound Eddie Burrows
(24-5); 130-pound Jaron Sampson (26-6); 135-pound Justin Ramsey (27-3);
189-pound Paul Goodrich (28-1) and 275-pound Justin Whipkey (23-7).
Several other wrestlers including 103-pound Sean Gungle (18-7); 140-pound
Jeff Goodrich (18-8) and 145-pound Caleb Hart (18-12) could go over the
20-win mark this weekend.
Calhoun should also herald the return of 215-pound wrestler Zac Yeager (9-6)
from an injury.
The other wrestlers scheduled to start for Calhoun include newcomers Alan
Carpenter (4-4) at 152 and Steven Wagoner (1-4) at 160.
Stump also said
Chris Mace (3-20), who started the season at a lower weight probably would
fill the open 171-pound spot the Red Devils have had this season.
Stump said some members of the Calhoun reserve team could possibly see
action as the tournament committee tries to fill every weight for a 12-team
field.
Following Saturday's match the Red Devils are on the road for the
Williamstown Rumble next weekend.
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