The two week break from school often brings many challenges for winter sports programs, like wrestling. Athletes are often traveling with their families, making practice attendance an issue, not to mention creating an issue with wrestling in a tournament. Despite these common issues, the Pickens High School Wrestling team pressed on through the break.

“We had about a 90% attendance rate on our practices during the break,” said head coach Grady Flanagan. “We only had two varsity wrestlers not make our pre-tournament practice on Monday; one of those was a freshman, who we knew might not be able to make it because of a family trip, and we are fine with that. Having so many kids show up is evidence that our kids are buying in and their parents are realizing that high school wrestling takes a certain level of commitment,”

said head coach, Grady Flanagan.

The Dragons began the holiday break at North Forsyth High School in the Coal Mountain Classic. In a tough tournament featuring several 6A teams, the Dragons managed only two placers. Koby Milner continued to amaze coaches and other wrestlers as he easily won the 106 pound weight class. Elliot Gallagher completed the day with a 4th place finish at 285 pounds.

Following a week of practice with breaks for Christmas, the Dragons returned to the mat for a tournament at Sequoyah High School. The Dragons put two groups into the tournament in hopes of getting several young wrestlers some mat time. The holiday break forced several teams to drop out and others to scratch some wrestlers, making for interesting brackets.

Koby Milner won a fifth title at 106 pounds. However, since there was only one other wrestler in his bracket, the tournament organizers allowed him to wrestle in the 113 pound division as well. Once again, he showed why he is one of the best in the state as he won the weight class. He became the only wrestler in school history to win two weight classes in one event. En route to the title, Milner had to wrestle teammate Michael Hernandez. Hernandez lost to Milner but the tournament was set up in such a way that a losing wrestler could wrestle all the way back to second place.

Hernandez did so and finished second, making it a one-two finish for Pickens at 113. Sophomore Kyle Tidwell finally saw his good work pay off as he worked three pins at 138 to finish first. Michael Casey wrestled at 145 in a weight class featuring one of the better wrestlers in the tournament. Despite losing in the championship round, Casey wrestled back to take second. Teammate Jared Edwards lost his first match but picked up his first win of the season via a first period pin.

Edwards was Pickens’ second entry in the 145 pound division. 160 pounds brought one of the more interesting match-ups of the day for the Dragons. After winning their first matches and losing their second, teammates Jake Coleman and Chase Millsap found themselves wrestling each other. The winner would take no worse than third.

Coleman earned a win over his teammate and ultimately finished third in the tournament. Josh Massey also found himself wrestling for second after losing in the championship final. Massey, however, pulled himself together and took second at 170 pounds. At 182 pounds, Freshman Zack Swaim earned a 4th place finish in his first varsity action of the year.

At 195 pounds, Senior John Holbert defeated teammate Matt Bradley en route to a first place finish. Elliot Gallagher rounded out an interesting day for the Dragons as he won in the finals against a Sequoyah wrestler when the Sequoyah wrestler’s headgear was found to be illegal.

In total, the Dragons had 5 first place finishes, 3 second, and one 3rd. This was good enough to earn the Dragons a second place finish as a team, their first team title in quite some time. The Dragons will rest and practice in preparation for the Area Duals on Saturday, January 10th at Gilmer High School.