Freshmen

“Duane Hunt is a sophomore,” remarked Douthit. “He wrestled some in youth league but hasn’t wrestled in a while. Last year he played basketball as a freshman. Duane will probably wrestle at (upper 130s). He wrestled in youth league over at Warner.”

Gore’s freshmen are Bladin McCartney, Antonio Parker and Marcus Scott.

“Bladin didn’t lose a junior high match last year and went undefeated, and I think he was 9-0,” Douthit said. “He didn’t get to wrestle all of those because sometimes they didn’t have somebody for him to wrestle in junior high. Bladin won the Maverick last year in the junior high ranks in the 168-pound class I think. He weighs about 181 right now so we’re going to find out where he best fits. Bladin’s super strong, super athletic and he just seems a natural. Never wrestled before last year.

“Antonio Parker and Marcus Scott will be on the varsity with us. They’re first-time wrestlers and we’ll have to find out where they’re going to wrestle at because they both weigh the same.

“Antonio was weighing 185, Marcus weighs 180 and Bladin weighs 181 so a couple of those boys will have to wrestle up or down. We’ve kind of got a logjam there.”

Schedule

The Pirates are scheduled to host five duals inside the Gore Event Center this season and they begin their season on Jan. 6 at the Hilldale Tournament in Muskogee.

“We wrestle every week in January and we’ll go to Class 3A regionals in February,” Douthit said. “Last year we didn’t have any rankings so we didn’t take our kids to regionals. Last year we only got to wrestle in one tournament and three duals.

“Our first tournament is Jan. 6-7 at Hilldale. “We’ve got five duals at Gore and we’re going to Heavener and Hulbert.

“Jan. 10 will be our first home dual. We’ll wrestle Heavener, and they just started wrestling this year. We’ve purchased some new mats.”

The Pirates will also attend tournaments at Catoosa and Sallisaw (Maverick Conference Tournament) this season.