Dad flies in to see sons win
Tanner Mann was trudging off the Jack Stephens Center floor after watching one of his Little Rock Central teammates lose a match in the Arkansas state high school wrestling tournament Friday night when he heard someone call out his middle name.
“Monroe,” Mann heard someone yell.
“I looked over and there was my dad,” Mann said. “I was a little emotional.”
Mann spent Friday and Saturday wrapping up his third consecutive state wrestling title that included a string of 58 consecutive victories. His second-period pin of Rogers Heritage’s Tylor McMurtrey in Saturday afternoon’s final looked about as easy as his previous two state tournament matches, each of which ended with a pin.
But the accomplishment was made even better for Mann, and his brother Tyler, that their father, Travis, was able to find himself a frontrow seat.
Travis Mann, a lieutenant colonel in the Arkansas Army National Guard, was given a 48-hour window to leave Stuttgart, Germany, watch his two sons wrestle in the only state tournament they’ll enter together, and return.
“Wrestling is pretty important to our family,” Travis Mann said. “Some people camp more than we camp, some people hunt more than we hunt. But we’ve [wrestled] since its inception.”
Travis Mann is a former football and wrestling coach at Little Rock Hall but was sent to Germany last February. He asked about a month ago if he could geta couple of days to watch his oldest son wrestle in his last state tournament and his middle son wrestle in his first - his youngest son, Tucker, is 13 - and was told “as long as nothing is happening.”
It wasn’t until Thursday morning he was told he could hop on a flight Friday morning and make his way back home.
After a 12-hour flight from Stuttgart to Atlanta, Mann caught a connecting flight to Little Rock and arrived at the Jack Stephens Center at about 7 p.m. Friday, just after Tanner and Tyler finished wrestling for the night.
On Saturday, he was sitting in the front row as Tanner Mann won the 130-pound title and Tyler Mann orchestrated one of the more exciting finishes of the twoday tournament.
“I could hear him the whole time,” Tyler Mann said.
Tyler Mann was trailing Conway’s Corven Alexander, who had won his previous three matches by pin or technical fall, 3-1 before a late reversal forced overtime. His takedown not long into the extra period gave him a 5-3 victory and the 145-pound title. And it also had his older brother and father spilling from the stands onto the mat for a family embrace.
“Whether they win, lose or draw in the championship matters not,” said Travis before the finals matches.
“It’s just being in the area. Even though it’s an individual sport, it’s so dependent on your family.”
First four-timer
Central Arkansas Christian’s Tyler Binford couldn’t get anyone thisweek to stop reminding him about the state wrestling history he was about to make Saturday.
“I told my dad to stop,” Binford joked. “Dad was a little excited going into this.”
When Binford pinned Gentry’s Kolby Rankin in 1:43 to win the Class 1A-5A 152-pound championship, he looked into the stands at Jack Stephens Center and could see that his father’s excitement hadn’t waned.
“He was already out of his chair,” said Binford, whose pin made him Arkansas’ first four-time state champion.
Binford won a 135-pound title as a freshman when wrestling was still a club sport, a 140-pound title in 2009 and a 145-pound title last year.
This year, his final matchdidn’t start out in his favor.
He was taken down by Rankin, before he scored an escape, put Rankin, a 2010 state champion, in a headlock on the edge of the mat and was able to finish the pin just before the first period ended.
“For someone down the line to say, ‘Tyler Binford is a four-time state champion’ that doesn’t mean that much,” Binford said. “But being the best and the team being there for the win, that means more than anything.”
Still unbeaten
Six wrestlers entered the Arkansas state high school wrestling tournament with unblemished records. Only three remained that way.
Little Rock Central 130-pounder Tanner Mann (35-0), Bryant 189-pounder O’Dell Lee (25-0) and Fayetteville 215-pounder Devin Bowers (18-0) each completed their seasons Saturday night without a loss.
That came after previously unbeaten Taylor Guise of Little Rock Central, Wayland Middleton of Mountain View and Chris Giblin of Benton each lost Friday.
“I had to try to not think about the upsets,” said Lee, who was runner-up at 189 pounds last year. “[Now] it makes me feel like I’m one of the top three wrestlers in all of Arkansas.”
***
INDIVIDUAL RESULTS
Saturday’s results
At Jack Stephens Center, Little Rock CLASS 6A-7A 103 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Chambers (LR Catholic) pin Schaeffer (Har-Ber), 1:29 SEMIFINALS Johnson (Russellville) major dec. Daniel (LR Central), 11-1 Linimon (FS Northside) pin Aist (Conway), 1:45 112 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Arnall (LR Central) dec. Corpier (Searcy), 2-0 SEMIFINALS Nhamnouane (VB) dec. Powell (Bryant), 3-1 Baysinger (Fayetteville) pin Schlag (FS Northside), 3:07 119 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Lewis (Bentonville) pin Humphries (Rogers), 1:48 SEMIFINALS Lusby (Conway) pin Arroyos (Fayetteville), 6:31 Perhson (Russellville) major dec. Willett (Heritage), 9-0 125 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Kurz (Cabot) major dec. Claros (Springdale), 15-4 SEMIFINALS Lusby (Conway) pin Asbill (Bentonville), 3:32 Perez (Heritage) pin Luken (LR Central), 1:59 130 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Mann (LR Central) pin McMurtrey (Heritage), 3:14 SEMIFINALS Branscum (Cownay) pin Burns (Searcy), 3:14 Falcon (Bentonville) pin Janawitz (Fayetteville), 6:34 135 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Bundy (Heritage) pin Arnall (LR Central), :40 SEMIFINALS Apple (Searcy) dec. Dooly (FS Southside), 6-1 Thomas (Fayetteville) tech. fall Mulcahy (Rogers), 16-1 140 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Reyes (Russellville) dec. Myers (Conway), 5-3SEMIFINALS Egle (LR Catholic) dec. Goshien (Bryant), 3-2 OT Palmer (Cabot) pin Evans (Heritage), 4:50 145 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Mann (LR Central) dec. Alexander (LR Central), 5-3 OT SEMIFINALS Chavez (FS Northside) dec. Daly (Fayetteville), 1-0 Kirkland (Har-Ber) pin Smith (FS Southside), 4:57 152 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Gonzalez (Bentonville) injury def. Cuevas (Russellville), 12-9 SEMIFINALS Baker (Fayetteville) dec. Edwards (FS Southside), 6-5 Hanson (Har-Ber) pin Mulcahy (Rogers), 3:00 160 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Coonce (Heritage) pin Bell (Searcy), 4:29 SEMIFINALS Bell (Cabot) dec. Lewis (VB), 3-1 Comier (Har-Ber) pin Rukgarber (Fayetteville), 4:40 171 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP McDowell (Bentonville) dec. Azumara (Conway), 9-3 SEMIFINALS Anderson (Fayetteville) pin Cox (LR Catholic), 3:06 Eakes (Jonesboro) dec. Mottu (Searcy), 7-5 189 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Lee (Bryant) pin Siler (Searcy), 1:56 SEMIFINALS Guise (LR Central) pin Starich (MH), 4:10 Ramey (Cabot) disqualification Larsen (Bentonville) 215 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Bowers (Fayetteville) dec. Gomez (Heritage), 5-3 SEMIFINALS Santos (Rogers) dec. Fulford (Conway), 9-4 Mason (Har-Ber) dec.Larsen (Bentonville), 3-1 285 POUNDS CHAMPIONSHIP Hernandez (FS Northside) dec. Hoggard (Conway), 6-2 SEMIFINALS Usifo (LR Central) dec. Negrete (Fayetteville), 7-4 Harrison (Har-Ber) injury default Rivers (Heritage)
Sports, Pages 34 on 02/27/2011