BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Lake Butler Middle School had two first-place finishers and four runners-up in placing third as a team at the Suwannee Middle Athletic Conference wrestling tournament, which was held Jan. 25 in Lake Butler.
Lake City won the championship with 275 points, while Bradford was the runner-up with 175 points. Lake Butler had 147.5 points to finish ahead of Suwannee (118.5), Palatka (84) and Interlachen (67).
The Tigers’ Gage Seay was the only wrestler in the 75-pound class, which resulted in an automatic championship. Kyson Waters’ 85-pound class had only three wrestlers, so Waters was automatically placed in the championship match, awaiting the winner between Bradford’s Conner Faircloth and Lake City’s Isaiah Wiley. Wiley advanced and then defeated Waters.
Winston Sparkman (90-pound class), Isaiah Cepeda (150), Rainee Johnson (175) and James Crew (215) all placed second in their respective classes.
Sparkman and Johnson wrestled in classes that had only two wrestlers, so their only action was in their championship matches. Sparkman was pinned by Lake City’s Xzavier Claridy, while Johnson was pinned by Lake City’s Jamarion West.
Cepeda recorded a pin in the semifinal round of his class before getting pinned by Bradford’s Mason Lowe in the championship match.
Crew also had a semifinal-round pin before getting pinned in the finals by Interlachen’s Ayden Green.
Five wrestlers earned third-place finishes: Carter Rogers (80), Madison Strickland (95), Mia Gaskin (120), Landon Douglas (126) and Phillip Watts (285).
Placing fourth were Mason Vandervort (100), Bristol Geist (106), Troy Alexander (144) and Rylan Franzluebbers (157), while Benjamin Russell (113), Chloe Foreman (132) and Easton Tetstone (138) finished in fifth place.
