Last week, the Gatewood wrestling team wrapped up its regular season by competing at the GIAA Region 1 traditional duals tournament in Statesboro and placed second overall.
Next, Gatewood is sending 10 wrestlers to the state meet in Gainesville, which is scheduled for Feb. 7-8 at Riverside Preparatory Academy.
Gatewood head coach Tyler VanDusen said the team hopes to win several gold medals.
“We’ve filled 10 out of the 14 weight classes this year and will take all 10 to state this week,” VanDusen said. “It’s been fun. It’s been really, really fun with the success that we’ve had. We put seven out of 10 in the region finals last week. That was great for our program, and we won four of them.”
At the region’s traditional duals, four of Gatewood’s grapplers — Huck McLaulin (106), Hunter Pierce (113), Talon Jones (126), and Tyler Middleton (285) — finished first overall in their respective weight classes.
Meanwhile, Jackson Hewatt (138), Caleb Harvey (150), and Wesley Lavigne (190) placed second overall at the region’s traditional duals tournament.
Grayson Larimore (fourth, 120), Bo Wooten (fourth, 132), and Adam Harvey (third, 165) were the remaining Mat Gators who qualified for the state meet in their respective weight classes.
VanDusen was particularly proud of Middleton, who made the state meet last year but had never placed first in region competition before.
“He’s been a starter for me for all five years of his career, and he’s never won region,” VanDusen said. “He’s sacrificed so much for the team and wrestled when he was young, and for him to go out and win one of his own was refreshing. It was a fun night, but we would’ve loved to have finished [first] as a team.”
The only seniors are Middleton, Hewatt, and Adam Harvey, so Gatewood is a young squad this season. Those three have helped lead the way, and two have been wrestling for VanDusen since sixth grade.
This year’s Gatewood roster features a few eighth graders and several underclassmen, so the future is bright for the Mat Gators.
“It’s a really young team,” Van Dusen acknowledged. “We had four region champions the other day. Two of them were eighth graders, and one was a freshman. So, having that kind of success with those guys has been really exciting. It’s kind of rejuvenated the program a little bit. It brought us a little bit of life, and it’s been fun.”
VanDusen and the team have high expectations for the state meet. They want every wrestler on the podium.
“As far as expectations go, we want to see how many of these guys we can put on the medal stand,” VanDusen said. “We have an opportunity. It’s going to be tightly contested. There’s a lot of matches. We’re going to have to go out and compete and perform at the level we hadn’t yet, but we’ve got a good mix of guys this year.”