On Saturday the varsity girls and boys as well as a selected group of JV wrestles travelled to College Station to compete at the 27th Annual Doc Hess Classic. This tournament fields teams from all over Texas. The boys team had a top 10 finish placing 8 out of 48 teams while the girls finished 13 out of 42 teams. The boys were powered by strong wrestling in every weight class with many competing deep into the consolation side of the bracket. Sr Connor O’Brien had a dominating performance on his way to a 1st place finish winning by pin, Decision (7-1), Decision (7-4), and the finals match also by Decision (8-5). Jr Grant Schneiders dropped a 1-3 heartbreaker in the semifinals but battled the back of the bracket and had a dramatic come from behind win 8-6 to secure 3rd place. Sr Ben Taylor placed 4th battling back from a semi-final loss after pinning his first two opponents. Jr Max Pechman (#113) and Sr Bryce Whitethorn (#126) both fell just short of competing for 3rd place in extremely close consolation semi-final bouts.
On the girls side, So Shobhana Spielmann continued her dominating ways winning her first two matches with pins before losing the finals bout 6-4 in a controversial last 10 seconds and placed 2nd. So Mekyela Garcia placed third by battling up the consolation bracket after dropping her quarterfinal bout, pinning her first 2 opponents, winning by Dec 7-2, and then pinning her opponent in the consolation final to secure 3rd place.
On the Sub-Varsity side, Sebastian Rangel placed 2nd after an overtime loss, Bryson Bjorkman placed 3rd, and Tripp Davenport placed 3rd with 3 wrestles, Dreysen Majuta, Adam Aguirre, and Miguel Gutierrez all placing 4th after battling to the consolation finals on the back half of the bracket.
Way to go Rattlers! We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and will be back on the mat when Reagan hosts the Gillespie Classic on Dec 28 (JV) and Dec 29 (Varsity).
Strike’em.