Sallisaw, Gore, Vian wrestlers in regionals today, Saturday

Our local high school girls wrestlers had their regional tournament Tuesday at Okmulgee. Now, it’s the guys’ turn.

The Sallisaw Black Diamonds, Gore Pirates and Vian Wolverines will be in their respective regional tournaments today and Saturday with the hopes of making their respective state tournaments, which will take place next Thursday through Saturday at Oklahoma City’s Jim Norick State Fair Arena.

The Black Diamonds will be in the Class 4A Regional Tournament at Bristow.

“Hopefully, they’ll be really excited,” Sallisaw coach Mark Smith said. “That’s the thing with wrestling is you have the one-on-one. Just depending on where they’re at, you deal with nerves and anxiety. Some of them go out there super excited and ready to go, and some of them not necessarily (super excited). You’ve got to kind of figure out what to do and do the best you can to balance that out — and that they have everything they need to get that confidence back.”

The Black Diamonds made it to the state semifinals in the Class 4A Dual State Tournament on Friday at Enid’s Stride Bank Center. Smith said having two more competitive matches for his matmen who had one is a big advantage for them heading into this weekend’s regional tournament.

“I think it is a positive,” he said. “Any extra matches like that against good teams, it’s always going to help.”

If there was a not-so-positive thing about last weekend’s dual state tournament, it was the Black Diamonds did not wrestle as well as they had hoped.

“It’s been a while since we have (been there),” Smith said. “None of our (current) kids have. They haven’t seen that scenario. To tell you the truth, it’s been since 1995 since as a wrestler I was there. It’s changed a lot. I thought we had some nerves working. We probably didn’t wrestle our best, but we made it to the semifinals — we made it to the top four. We got beat by a team (Cushing) we had beaten earlier in the year.”

However, just getting to dual state hopefully will provide some much needed intensity for the Black Diamonds for this weekend’s regional tournament.

“The dual part of it (the season) is done,” Smith said. “We did as good as about anybody. We went 10-1 this year. I fed that into our kids. I told them we need to be proud of our dual season, going 10-1 and doing something we haven’t done in a long time. It’s something they can take away as a confidence builder.”

Smith has a good feeling about the majority of the Black Diamonds qualifying for state.

“We’ve got seven or eight kids who will be in pretty good shape (to qualify),” he said. “We have to make sure we get some kids seeded right, but they just have to go out and wrestle. If we wrestle well, we’re going to be fine. I would like to get 10 to 11 kids (qualified), and I think there’s a chance of that happening if we wrestle well.”

The Pirates and Wolverines will be at the Class 3A Regional Tournament in Vinita.

The Pirates will only take the McCartney brothers — Bladin at 175 pounds and Caydin at heavyweight.

“We made progress throughout the year,” Gore coach Matt Hawkins said. “Our kids are in pretty good shape right now. Inexperience is still an issue. We’re going to go in and really wrestle well. We will have to handle ourselves well on the mat, and have a chance to make it.”

Hawkins is hoping he can get either or both brothers qualified for state.

“It would be great,” he said. “We’re such a young program. To get someone as a state qualifier right now would be an extremely great accomplishment. I would be very pleased with that, and it would show our program is going in the right direction.”

For the Wolverines, they will have five going to this weekend’s regional, possibly a sixth. The five confirmed are last year’s state qualifier Gunner Richey (who will be at 138 pounds), Adoff Stahl (126), Lane Jameson (190), Garritt Hunt (215) and Clay Clark (heavyweight). The sixth wrestler is Tristan Wiley at 175, but he’s battling injuries.

“It’s kind of like our girls,” Vian coach Garett Willis said. “I told them if you (boys) go compete, and the apple falls right where it needs to be, we’ll be just fine. I think Gunner is a shoe-in. I hope he’s going to be a regional champ. That’s the goal — it’s a very doable goal. For the rest of them, I don’t think they’re a guarantee by any means, but I also think it’s extremely possible (to qualify for state). If we go up there and wrestle like we can, I like our chances.”

For both McCartney brothers and Wiley and Clark, they could square off against each other — either for a final spot at state, or earlier in the day.

“Hopefully, it doesn’t come down to one of us not going,” Willis said. “Hopefully, it will come down that we both can still get in. Regardless, it would be good for the area. That kind from Gore (heavyweight Caydin McCartney) is a handful. They (McCartneys) are both good wrestlers.”

“That would be good for everybody around here,” Hawkins said about a potential Gore-Vian match-up at either 175 pounds or heavyweight, or both. “The Wolverines have a good program. We will have to wrestle really well to hold our ground against them.”

The top five placers in each weight class will qualify for state, with the sixth-place finishers being state-tournament alternates should one of the top five placers in each weight class have to bow out due to injury or illness.