BIG TIME WRESTLING

The Whitley Co. wrestling program continues to get better each week.
Several of the boys have taken their sport seriously and have worked hard to get in a managable weight class.
Jacob Chancellor dropped five pounds and now is wrestling in the 140-pound class. The result was his first championship of the season in the Bourbon Co. Invitational last week.
Jaron Singley made a drastic drop and has gone from the 189-pound class to the 171-pound division. He two picked up the gold medal in the Bourbon County tournament.
Three guys took second in the tournament, D.C. Evans (103), Carl Petrey (152) and Joey Caddell (119).
The surprise may have been seventh grader, Duncan Caddell, who was third in the 112-pound class. He didn’t get to wrestle boys his own age, he had to wrestle high school boys. And, he went 2-2 for the bronze medal.
As a team, the Colonels scored their highest finish of the year, taking third place out of nine teams. Not too shabby guys.
Whitley-Williamsburg
I missed the big game Saturday night as the Colonels and Jackets went at it for the second time on the hard wood.
The first game saw the Colonels win big, 69-30 at Lawson Gym. But, it was a whole different story Saturday night at Mountjoy Gym as the Jackets nearly pulled the upset.
However, two Colonels had extremely high scoring games. Senior Travis Roaden poured in 25 points while eighth grader, Jamie Lebanion had a season high 21 points.
The two are really trying to rally this Whitley County team. Just look at their last few games and you can see.
Roaden has averaged 21 points in his last five games. He has had over 20 points in four of those games.
Lebanion has averaged 15 points a game during that same span.
It’s not only the points the two have scored but the rebounding and other little things they are doing.
On the Williamsburg side, Chase Fields really had an outstanding game. He had a season high 20 points while Michael McRay had 20 points as well. It was the third time this season McRay had over 20 points.
Fields has picked up his game over the last several weeks. He is averaging in double figures during that time with a 12 point average. McRay still leads the team with a 14.5 average.
The Jackets have won just one game in 10 starts but they have shown considerable improvement since the Christmas break.
They have some winnable games coming up, but they still face a tough schedule with the likes of Pineville and Somerset.
All “A” Classic
The 13th Region All “A” Boys Tournaments get underway Monday night.
Barbourville and Pineville look to be the tournament favorites and could meet in the finals.
The first-round will be Monday night when Williamsburg goes to Middlesboro to take on the high scoring Yellow Jackets.
Evarts will play at OBI and Jackson County goes to Red Bird.
In the second-round, Harlan is at Barbourville next Tuesday night, the Williamsburg-Middlesboro winner goes to Cumberland in the upper bracket.
In the lower bracket, Pineville goes to the winner of Evarts-OBI while Lynn Camp host the winner of the Jackson County-Red Bird winner.
The semifinals will be Thursday at Evarts with the finals Friday night.
The girls region got underway Monday night with Barbourville beating Evarts 42-30, Middlesboro beat Lynn Camp 72-47 and Jackson County beat Pineville 52-40.
In last night’s second round, Cumberland traveled to Harlan, Barbourville went to Red Bird, Jackson County to Middlesboro and Williamsburg hosted OBI.
Williamsburg made it to the finals last year before being taken to the cleaners by the men in stripes.
The semifinals and finals are scheduled Thursday and Friday at Red Bird.
Let’em play
Speaking of the men in stripes… The only comment I have about the Corbin-Pineville game. Come on guys, let them play the game and stop trying to out do each other. It was obvious one offical was for Corbin, one for Pineville and one did his job nicely.
Lady Redhound Shootout
The top ranked Corbin Lady Redounds will host a shootout Saturday at Gilliam Gym.
There will be four games starting at 2 p.m.
Cawood will play Wayne County at 2 p.m., followed by South Laurel and Lawrence County.
Clay County will play Letcher Central at 5:30 with Corbin taking on Paul Dunbar in the nightcap at 7:15.
It should be a day for some outstanding basketball with three of the four top teams in the 13th region playing, #1 Corbin, #2 Clay County and #3 South Laurel all in action.
I still can’t understand the Cantrell Rankings. How in the world is Corbin not a top 25 team with the schedule they have played?
It says they count strength of schedule and I know the Lady Redhounds have a tough schedule.
Even the Massey Ratings, one of the best in the US has Corbin ranked 14th in the state and says they have the 37th best schedule. Clay County is 9th with the 30th toughest schedule. Not sure I agree with that, but I’ve been wrong many times.
I’ve been told the Corbin-South Laurel girls game was going to be played Friday night, but Coach Jennifer Parsons said that game was going to be played Thursday. It will be at South Laurel.
Ouch!
My buddy, Jimmy Hendrickson, has been sidelined for several months after he broke his leg playing around on a horse. Just kidding Jimmy.
He was telling me about the accident Monday and it sounded pretty bad. He said he was going to be in a cast for two months. Looks like you are homebound for a while man.
Anyway, you might want to send Jimmy get well wishes. Good luck on your recovery old man, I feel for Tammy and the boys during this stay at home.