Grapplers to compete in 2-day Maverick Conference Tournament at Stilwell

All of our local high school and junior high wrestlers will be competing today and Saturday at the 2025 Maverick Conference Tournament, which will take place at Stilwell Activity Center.

The junior high portion of the two-day event will take place today, followed by the high school division seeing action on Saturday.

The Sallisaw Black Diamonds, Roland Rangers, Vian Wolverines and Gore Pirates will represent the area in the boys’ division on both days, while the Lady Diamonds and the Lady Wolverines will be in the girls’ division.

“We always like to do good in the Maverick Conference Tournament,” Sallisaw boys assistant coach Scott Mayfield said. “I like our chances. Several of our guys are looking to repeat as champions this year. This could be Cole Mayfield’s fourth championship at conference, Cason’s (Craft) second and Bodie (Adams) has another chance at a conference championship. Morgan (Duke) has a chance to go win conference. Hunter (Smith) has a chance to win conference this year and repeat. Everyone is looking forward to the big weekend.”

“I think we do have some chances at conference champions,” first-year Gore coach Jake Constant said. “I think it will be tough. Some of the guys we saw at the Paul Post Classic (last weekend at Sallisaw High School’s Paul Post Field House) are going to be at the Maverick Conference Tournament as well. It will definitely be a tall task, but I think we can get a few champions.”

This tournament always has been thought of as a tune-up to what the local wrestlers will see at their respective regional tournaments next month.

“This is important,” Sallisaw girls wrestling coach Darrel Hume said. “We get to see a lot of the kids that we’re going to get to see at regionals. This will help us get an idea of what we need to fix before the regional tournament (Feb. 17-18 at Jay). I think the girls will be ready to rock and roll. I think what we’re going to do to see more success is move some of our freshmen down to the junior high and let them get some success. We’ve been wrestling them up (on the high school team) for about 90 percent of the year. A freshman wrestling in high school is hard on them, so we want to let them wrestle kids their own age and see what they can do — and boost their confidence — before entering regionals.”

“It’s a great opportunity,” Constant said. “If you do well at the Maverick Conference Tournament, there’s a great chance you’ll be seeded high at regionals with a couple of good wins. Obviously, the better the seed at regionals, the better the opportunity is to get to state.”

Being only a half hour away, local participants will be able to not have to lodge overnight out of town in a motel, but get to stay in their own homes.

“We love that,” Hume said. “We’ll get to go home and sleep in our own beds. That’s a neat thing as far as being a coach. When we go and spend the night, you can’t just go back to your room and it’s over (for the day). We still have to babysit all night long and keep them doing stupid things — then waking them up in the morning. Here, we can drop them off (at school returning from Stilwell), then it’s their parents’ job (to babysit them). We can all go home, take a shower and sleep in our own beds. That’s so much nicer.”

All the local wrestlers are looking forward to this weekend’s conference tournament.

“They’re pretty excited,” Constant said. “As of right now, we’re only going to take three high school wrestlers and seven junior high wrestlers. We’ve kind of been hit with the sick bug and some minor injuries to take care of, so we’ll be taking a mighty small group. Between the District (3A-7) Duals and the Paul Post Classic, some of the high school wrestlers wrestled about 10 to 15 matches over the course of about three days. So, we’re looking to finish strong, then have a couple weeks of a nice break before regionals.”