Georgia State Duals Fan's Guide - 4A

Overall notes:

Remember this is a Fan’s Guide to the state dual tournament. For those of you that are less knowledgable regarding the specifics of duals vs. tournaments … duals are like other traditional sports where one team competes directly against another to accumulate the most points. Matchups at weight classes can play a huge role in the outcome and the ability of coaches to “move around” wrestlers to create favorable matchups can be critical to the outcome.

Order: Most of the time the dual begins at 106 and proceeds through the weight classes and concludes at heavyweight. That is not mandatory and the dual can start anywhere in the 14 weight classes … so if the dual starts at 145 it will proceed through the weight classes until it finishes at 138. As you can see in the example below … the 7A State Final began at 285 and then concluded at 220.

Scoring: An individual match is scored just like it always is … 2 points for a takedown, etc. The dual is scored the same way you may have seen throughout the season … but in case you were confused here is a brief idea of how it is done:

  • A fall is worth 6 pts

  • A technical fall (difference between individual wrestlers is 15 or more points) is worth 5 pts.

  • A major decision (difference between individual wrestlers is 8 or more, but under the 15) is worth 4 points.

  • A regular decision (basically a win without a fall, tech fall, or major), is worth 3 points.

  • Teams can be deducted points for a variety of reasons, but I won’t get into that.

Below is an example from last year’s 7A State Finals between Camden County and Mountain View.

 
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NOTE: Programs in Georgia, as a whole, do a fairly poor job of capturing results through Trackwrestling or FloArena. Not all programs do a poor job, but there are schools listed below where I could not find any results (duals or tournaments) from the 2019-2020 season. As a result some of the information below is incorrect. I think it is important to remind everyone the purpose of this “Fan’s Guide”. Many people will descend on Macon from across the state this Thursday and may not have any idea about the school they are wrestling or the other action that is going on around on the floor. This is simply a way to help your average fan have a better understanding of the teams and some of the individuals that are competing. Are there wrestlers missing from the information below that will be in the lineup? Yes. Are there wrestlers that will be competing at a weight rather than what is listed below? Absolutely yes. The “advantage” listed to the side is based on 2 things:

  1. Whether a wrestler is a returning state champ, placer, or qualifier. Typically a wrestler that is a returning champ will have the “advantage” on a wrestler that is not a returning champ.

  2. If I found results of one wrestler beating another during the season … that would get the wrestler that won an “advantage”. Was it close? Did someone get caught? It really doesn’t matter because this isn’t a prediction … again it is one person’s opinion based on limited information of who might have an advantage.

A “toss-up” is where neither is a returning qualifier and, as far as I can tell from online results, they haven’t wrestled. Is it possible I missed a result when putting this together? I’m sure I have. I don’t remember who beat who in the 2nd round of consolations at the Buford Takedown Invitational in early December. All of that to say … enjoy the fan’s guide. I plan to be on the floor Friday and Saturday taking pictures and updating this part of the website throughout the weekend.

Class 4A

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Seeds:

  1. Woodward Academy

  2. Gilmer

  3. Central, Carroll

  4. Northwest Whitfield

In nearly half the weights (not quite but you get my meaning) - Woodward might have the best run of talent as anyone in the state. I think one of their tweets just before the season started - said “I will take my 6 vs. your 6 any day” or something to that effect. And you can see why … they have gone everywhere this season - have 4 seniors that will wrestle Division 1 next season and 2 sophomores that might be better than that. That still leaves 8 weight classes up for grabs … it isn’t much room, but Gilmer, Carroll Central, and Northwest Whitfield headline those teams willing to give it a shot. While 7A, 6A, and 5A (so far in my writing) don’t have a clear favorite (at least in my opinion … Woodland is a pretty clear favorite and Camden is going for their 6th straight, but I digress) - Woodward Academy is (in my opinion) as clear a favorite as you get. The GHSA doesn’t hand out trophies or titles on Monday so we still must work our way through the bracket, but Woodward is going to be tough to beat. That said - a tough West Laurens team will get them right off the bat.

Top quarter of the bracket:

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Woodward Academy is the clear favorite, but they get a good test to start their run to a title. West Laurens Has Bonner, Snell, Carr, and Horne up top … so they can 24 points on most teams without a problem. For West Laurens to stay in the dual they need to win the toss ups at 113 and 120 (that could give them 6 wins and possibly 36 points - if they could get a win elsewhere they could make it interesting).

The other match in the quarter has Cairo taking on Cartersville. Cartersville should have the advantage in 8 of the matches, Cairo in 3 matches with 3 being toss-ups. Cartersville has 2 returning placers and 6 other qualifiers from 2019 … they could be a tough out.

Camden

2nd quarter of the bracket:

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Madison County has some hammers to hang with Blessed Trinity - the challenge is that it appears they have a few holes as well. It is tough to win a close dual giving up 12 or 18 points by way of forfeit. Perhaps they have a 113 and 120 and can be competitive at those weights (meaning maybe losing, but not giving up a fall or other bonus points). Blessed Trinity is tough in the middle with Riordan, Daniels, and Filipowicz and if Madison County is going to pull the upset they will need to keep those matches in check and get bonus points from Kincaid, Hoetzel, and Cooper.

Northwest Whitfield is a deep team and can overwhelm the opposition with numbers. They can move wrestlers around to create the matchups that favor them and will be tough to beat for any of the other three teams in this quarter of the bracket.

3rd quarter of the bracket:

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I got the opportunity to see Carroll Central at the Bradley Central Invitational in late December and came away very impressed with how hard the team wrestles. They are very similar to Northwest Whitfield in that they seem to have few holes, but they also counter with 2 hammers in Shadinger and Sheffield and 5 other 2019 qualifiers. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they are sitting in the finals on Saturday afternoon.

Eastside vs. North Oconee might be a sleeper of a first round matchup. Eastside has holes, from what I’ve able to find in terms of results, at 113, 120, and 195 - but will battle at each of the other weights - including a really good matchup at 106 between Lane and Lasher. In the end, North Oconee has too much firepower with Jarvis, Branand, Johnson, and Bloom. A quarterfinal matchup between Carroll Central and North Oconee might be a barnburner (2 vs 4 2019 state placers and 5 vs 3 2019 qualifiers).

Bottom quarter of the bracket:

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Perhaps the best first round matchup in 4A comes with Perry vs. Columbus. Perry seems to have a hole at 106, Columbus at 170 (although they should be able to bump someone up). Perry has Williams and Taylor which should yield 12 points against most teams. This matchup features two outstanding individual matches … and both involve the Thiel’s of Perry County. Austin Thiel, the 2019 106 lb. State Champ, could face Austin Bell who finished 5th at 113 last year … that would be the co-main event followed by 2019 138 lb. 3rd place finisher Triston Thiel versus 2019 145 lb. 3rd place finisher Robert Mulvany at 160. Columbus needs to win the toss-up matches if they are going to down Perry.

The #2 seeds haven’t gotten a good draw in most of the classifications and that trend continues in 4A. Gilmer is certainly the favorite vs. Flowery Branch, but the match should be very competitive. Gilmer should have the advantage at 6 weights, Flowery Branch at 5 with 106, 120, and 160 being possible toss-up matches. Expect this one to be close and look for Waddell to possibly bump to 182 to get Gilmer 6 in a weight class that is right now an advantage to Flowery Branch because of a “hole” in the lineup.

Jason FulmoreComment