BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Bradford and Union County high schools competed in the Jan. 3-4 Joe Bees Memorial: Battle of the Border at Yulee High School, with each team having a third-place wrestler and a fourth-place wrestler.
Union’s Gavin Sparkman took third in the 138-pound class. He opened by pinning an opponent in 17 seconds before suffering a 15-0 loss by technical fall in the second round. Sparkman then won by a pin of 1:46 before recording a 16-1 win by technical fall over Yulee’s Isaiah Stutsman.
Daniel Banda of Bradford was third in the 165 class. After opening with a 4-0 loss, he pinned an opponent in 44 seconds, defeated another by a score of 21-19 and then recorded another pin (2:38) to advance to the third-place match. There, Banda pinned Peter Fallon of Benedictine Military School (Savannah, Georgia) in 2:31.
Bradford’s Miguel Rivera wrestled in the 150 class. After getting pinned in 1:50, he pinned an opponent in 35 seconds to reach the third-place match. He finished fourth after getting pinned in 3:52 by Eric Albert of Nease.
Carsen Thomas represented Union in the 175 class. He had a couple of wins by a pin (1:40) and a forfeit before finishing in fourth place.
Union’s Alec French went 3-1 in the 132 class before losing in the consolation semifinals. He pinned opponents in 52 seconds, 1:13 and 26 seconds for all of his wins.
Bradford and Union each had one wrestler go 2-2. The Tornadoes’ Tremeze White did so in the 175 class, pinning two opponents in 4:37 and 1:21, while the Tigers’ Preston Griffin pinned opponents in 36 seconds and 1:17 in the 190 class.
The Tigers had three wrestlers with one win each: Elijah Roberts by forfeit in the 157 class, Jameson Lang by a pin of 1:16 in the 175 class and C.J. Ivey by a pin of 2:38 in the 190 class.
