Ravenwood, led by senior captain and 215-pounder Harrison Hawthorne, is one of the favorites in Brentwood's G.P. West / Bruins Invitational wrestling tournament this weekend.

Raptors among favorites in G.P. West / Bruin Invitational

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Tournament host Brentwood and state-ranked Ravenwood will compete with 20-plus wrestling teams in the G.P. West / Bruin Invitational today and Saturday at BHS.

This is the 42nd year for the tournament, which Coach West started at Maplewood and 1969 and then moved with him to Hillwood, Whites Creek and finally Brentwood.

Gabe Hamilton of BHS against Independence

"The tournament is always competitive and is very popular with the teams attending because they can bring their entire program and have a spot for each wrestler either in the varsity, JV or freshman divisions," said current BHS coach Joe Blair.

Ravenwood is among the favorites this year for the varsity tourney along with Union County (Ky.),  Franklin, Clarksville, Ooltewah and defending champion McCallie. RHS Coach Josh Peck believes McCallie, added after some other schools canceled due to snow, should be the favorite.

There are 23 total teams in the varsity field, plus five more in just junior varsity and/or freshman competition.

"I think we are a much better dual team than individual, and this will be the toughest tournament of the year so we can finally gauge where we stand statewide after this weekend," Peck said. "Of course, we are also trying to heal up a few injuries before we have our important duals with Brentwood, Independence and Franklin."

Ravenwood, which postponed its match with Independence until Jan. 20, needs to beat the Eagles and have them lose to Franklin to make the dual regionals.

The Raptors' 112-pounder Kyle Kuehnhold is undefeated at 24-0. Ravenwood also boasts Jacob Freeman (119), third in the state last year; returning region champ Jack Finnegan (125); currently third-ranked Harrison Hawthorne (215); and seniors Ryan Churchill (135), Michael Gray (140), Robbie Billings (145) and Dylan Yeager (heavyweight).

BHS sophomore Gabe Hamilton and senior Ben Smith have placed in all the tournaments so far for Brentwood, which had rescheduled its duals match with Franklin to Thursday.  

Hamilton (22-3) pinned all of his opponents to win the Father Ryan Invitational last weekend. Smith (21-5) just received an appointment to West Point military academy (click here for story).

"We have some holes in the lineup that's kind of holding us back in our dual matches; we have to forfeit some weight classes," Smith said last month. "But where we do have guys, we've seen lot of improvement, we've seen a lot of hard wrestling."

Nick Coffey against Independence

Also strong for the Bruins this season are Powell Newbern (18-9), Andrew Davidson (13-6), Chris Hoop (19-7), Nicholas Coffey (19-2) and Demetrics Brown (16-8), Blair said. Coffey, the team's 215-pounder, won outstanding wrestler at the Ooltewah tournament.

"We've got a really big corps of senior leaders who are starting, and that's a big advantage in matches and also in the practice room," Smith said.

Wrestling begins with JV and freshmen at 5 p.m. Friday, with varsity starting at 6 p.m. The wrestlers hit the mats again at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, with semifinals around 11 a.m. and the medal round about 5-5:30 p.m. Cost is $5 Friday and $8 Saturday.