As the weather turns colder and the holidays grow closer, one event remains a consistent joy for the NC Wrestling community — the annual Warrior Invitational. Hosted in the main gym November 9, the varsity boys began their seasons alongside eleven other high schools — Allatoona High School, Blessed Trinity Catholic High School, Cartersville High School, Harrison High School, Kennesaw Mountain High School, Marietta High School, Mill Creek High School, Osborne High School, Roswell High School, South Cobb High School and The Westminster Schools — all vying for the win. As the reigning champions from the 2023 Warrior Invitational, NC looked forward to facing off against the diverse competition warming up on the Warrior’s home turf. Despite only the varsity boys competing at the Invitational, all members of the NC wrestling staff, as well as the junior varsity and Lady Warrior wrestlers arrived to voice their support and work tables with the team managers.
“Last year we won for the first time in school history, [and as a team] we want to repeat it back to back. Personally, I just want kids to go out there and compete and learn from experiences and get better at each day. The team has been good at being there for each other. Each day the goal is to get one percent better, and just go off of that. If you build off those good days, it turns into great days, and we’ll keep on doing that,” NC Girls Head Wrestling coach Jacob Longacre said.
Across three mats, wrestlers faced off in various duels to advance in the tournament. Several of NC’s varsity members encountered bye matches in the first championship rounds; sophomore Dawson Brownlee (190) scored NC’s first win of the day, by securing a pin during the second period against his competitor Noah Ruffin (190) from Marietta High School. Freshman and newcomer to wrestling, Khristian Nelson (106), defeated Kennesaw Mountain’s Tyler Starks (106) in the same fashion, by pinning him in under 90 seconds of their match. As the quarterfinals picked up steam, senior Kariyah Easter (120), junior Marcus McAdams (126) and magnet junior Trey Daniels (138) pinned down their competitors within the beginning seconds of their respective trials.
In his quarterfinal match, sophomore Anthony Blessington (144) faced an uphill battle that spanned all three periods against Marietta’s Imari Meachum (144). With three takedowns, two near falls and one escape, Blessington racked up 18 points to Meachum’s zero, cementing him as the victor. Magnet junior Mason Prevost (157) followed suit during his match with Matias Garcia Schreiber (157) from Blessed Trinity; Prevost amassed six successive takedowns against Schreiber, bringing the score to 21 to 4, and winning by technical fall. Sophomores Micheal Fletcher (285) and Logan Rudolph (165) as well as magnet sophomore Ronan An (215) helped NC end the quarterfinal round strong by attaining individual wins, which simultaneously helped boost the team score.
The Warriors lost a bit of steam in the semifinal round, with McAdams losing to Landon Tran (126) from Mill Creek, and South Cobb’s Wisdom Iheanacho (165) besting Rudolph. In the consolation semifinals, Prevost pinned Anselm Ball (157) from Westminster within 48 seconds of the second period, and Fletcher earned fourth place with his tumultuous match against Marietta’s Jeremiah Atkinson (285). Rudolph also placed fourth in his respective match. In a heated battle for third, Prevost successfully beat Kevin Santillian (157) from Osborne and received NC’s first top-three finish of the day. On top of that, Blessington, Daniels and An progressed to the first-place match as the rest of the team awaited their results.
To end off the day, both Blessington and Daniels placed second in their respective matches, earning NC two additional silver medals for their trophy case. An, NC’s sole victor for the day, fought against Marietta’s Alex Glymph (215) and beat him through a major decision. The championship matches helped cement NC’s fourth-place finish at the Invitational, with a score of 123.5 points. Mill Creek, Harrison and Osborne placed first, second and third overall respectively.
“I started the season out with a decently tough opponent in the finals, a guy that was a good bit bigger than me. Being able to handily beat him gives me more confidence in staying at this higher weight class for the season. For me, I’ve got one guy that really stands in my way of winning state this year. I’ve got a couple of chances to wrestle him before state where I hope to beat him. For the team, we have to polish up a few things and then I think we’ll be quite good. I want us to win regions again and hopefully make a deeper splash into State [Championships] this year,” An said.
