Rockets Dominate

STAFF PHOTO BEN GOFF 
Heath Henman of Rogers High, top, works to pin Heritage’s Gaven Long during the 132-pound final on Saturday at the Bentonville Tiger Classic wrestling tournament. Henman won the match by pinning Long.

STAFF PHOTO BEN GOFF Heath Henman of Rogers High, top, works to pin Heritage’s Gaven Long during the 132-pound final on Saturday at the Bentonville Tiger Classic wrestling tournament. Henman won the match by pinning Long.

Monday, January 20, 2014

— Little Rock Catholic’s first trip to the Bentonville Tiger Classic wrestling tournament was definitely a good one.

The Rockets came away with the Tiger Classic title Saturday and established themselves as the early favorite to win the Class 6A-7A state tournament, which is less than a month away.

Josh Chiles, the defending 6A-7A state champion at 195 pounds, won the 182-pound class and was named the most outstanding wrestler in the heavyweights to lead Catholic to the win in the 11-team event. He was one of two Rockets to win their weight class on Saturday.

Catholic finished with 155 points in the tournament, which divided wrestlers into two pools in each weight class. The winner of each pool advanced to the finals. Maumelle, the defending 1A-5A state champions, finished second, with 124, followed by Broken Arrow, Okla., JV, Rogers Heritage and then host Bentonville.

Catholic coach Paul Mammarelli, whose team also edged Maumelle in a tournament a week ago, said the Tiger Classic was a little tougher.

“We had more challenges this week because I think we had better competition,” Mammarelli said. “I did feel good about the way we performed. We’ve still got some things to repair this week. We’re trying to figure out the seedings for state and I feel pretty confident we’ve got a good number of guys that will get in that top four.”

The Rockets return eight state medalists from a team, which tied for second. But only three of those finished in the top three. Richard Buzzito, who won at 120 on Saturday, finished third at state a year ago.

Heritage was the top finisher from Northwest Arkansas, edging out host Bentonville and coach Doug Freeman was pleased overall with the War Eagles’ effort, after finishing sixth a week ago at Maumelle.

The War Eagles had only nine wrestlers finish the tournament Saturday, since one was sent home ill. But eight of the nine finished among the top four in their weight class. Caleb Royal, Gaven Long, Shae Chafin and Jordan Vazquez each finished second in their weight class.

“I wished we’d had a little better final round, but overall yes I was pleased,” Freeman said. “Ramsey Gonzalez finished really strong to get third.”

Freeman also agreed Catholic solidified itself as the favorite by winning back-to-back weeks, but also acknowledged putting every big school together could make for an interesting mix.

“There’s no doubt what they’ve done the last two weeks they are the favorite,” Freeman said. “But we’ll see when we all get together.”

Heritage and Bentonville should have closer to a full lineup by the state tournament and are hoping to challenge Catholic.

The Tigers were missing five starters from their lineup on Saturday thanks to illness and injury, but coach Bill Desler said he had some good efforts from Aaron Grigsby and Jeff Bizzle, who won at 126 and 145 respectively.

“I’m never happy, but they both wrestled well,” Desler said. “But I’m still looking for more from a lot of 
them.”