BUFORD — Teams from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama converged on the Buford Arena on Saturday, December 14, 2019, to take part in the Takedown Sportswear Invitational wrestling tournament. This was the second tournament that the Buford High School wrestling team has hosted this year and is their largest event of the season with 17 varsity and 12 junior varsity teams participating.
Buford wrestlers faired pretty well during the event. Their team is still without some of their higher weight classes due to several were still playing football up until Friday night. “I feel that we wrestled pretty well, especially on the JV level,” says BHS wrestling head coach Tom Beuglas. “The varsity (team) is not going to be at our best until we can fill all of our weight classes. We should get the football players back in the next few weeks and into the lineup which will help tremendously.”
The top performers for the varsity team for the Wolves were Blaine Bergey and Nick Stonecheck who both finished in 1st place in their weight class. Charlie Darracott placed 2nd, Tyler Henley – 4th, Jacob Downing – 5th, and Talen Thompson – 6th. For the J.V. Wolves, Tucker Kazienko and Grayson Santee came in 1st place while Zach Hogle, Mikey Canavan, and Jocksan Lezama all came in 3rd place in their weight classes. Other notables for the J.V. team are 4th place finishers Britt Shirley, Hunter Phillips, Jameson Hynds, and Lofton Smith.
Overall, Coach Beuglas was happy with his teams’ performances especially in light of the level of competition they faced. “The tournament was great, we had some excellent teams, including top teams from Georgia, Alabama, and the #1 team in Tennessee. The competition and level of skill were as good or better than our state tournament,” relates Beuglas.
Coach Beuglas and the BHS wrestling team would like to thank tournament sponsors Takedown Sportswear and Chick Fil A Mall of Georgia for their continued support.
The team will be racking up the miles over the Winter Break from school traveling to Baltimore, Maryland to compete in a national tournament called the Mount Mat Madness tournament the weekend after Christmas. After Maryland, the guys will wrestle in the Gwinnett County tournament at Mill Creek High School on January 3-4.
