2011-12 Season Newspaper Articles

By Fred Aldrich

Special to The Advocate

December 31, 2011

High school wrestlers took over the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse at LSU on Thursday and Friday for one of the largest high school sporting events held in the South.

Teams from 48 schools, 20 from Louisiana and 28 from out of state, competed in the third annual Deep South Bayou Duals Tournament.

“It was really a spectacle,” Brusly High coach and tournament director Jimmy Bible said. “Everyone loves it. The biggest tournament in the world is Fargo (N.D.) in the Fargo Dome and they’ve got 26 mats on the floor. We had 16 all day yesterday.

“Things just couldn’t have gone better,” he said.

Dual meet tournaments are different from traditional individual tournaments in that each team wrestles five dual meets in pool play the first day, then is placed in a bracket for the second day depending on their first day performance.

Friday’s competition consisted of a 16-team championship bracket (first and second place finishers in pool matches)and four other brackets, one each for third through sixth place finishers.

Two out of state powers, Jefferson City, Mo., and Thompson High from Alabaster, Alabama, survived tough challenges from Louisiana teams to advance to the championship finals.

Thompson, the defending Alabama Class 6-A state champions, pulled away in the final matches for a 37-24 victory for its third tournament championship of the season.

The irony of his team’s claiming a championship across the street from Tiger Stadium was not lost on Thompson coach Shawn Weltzin.

“Actually, we did want to get a big ‘Roll Tide’ in the newspaper, so here it is: ‘Roll Tide,’” he said.

“Then I have to say it’s a great tournament, great people, great hospitality. Brusly is a great host school. The travel is a great bonding experience for the kids, and I really like the dual format.

Thompson advanced to the finals with a 36-28 win over Brother Martin of New Orleans in the semifinals. Jefferson City defeated Catholic High 32-26 to secure the other spot in the finals.

“We lost a tough one to Jefferson City,” Catholic coach Tommy Prochaska said. “We had a chance to win it, but just couldn’t pull through.

“The competition here was unreal,” he said. “When you bring in almost 30 teams from out of state you don’t know a lot about them and it’s hard to game plan.

“You have to do it in matches and it was tough, but it’s great for our kids — the exposure to tough matches will help us down the road.”

Catholic High wrestler Michael Bourgoyne won six matches to run his season record to 30-0.

“There are a lot of different wrestlers and you have to adjust to how they wrestle and still keep it within your style,” Bourgoyne said. “The guy from Jefferson City gave me the toughest match. He was really strong and a real scrambler, tough to take down. It took a lot to take him down.”

Bourgoyne won the match 10-5.

Senior J.A. Jones of Thompson is undefeated in the 152-pound division for a 36-0 season record. He is the defending state champion at 145 pounds in Alabama.

“My toughest fight was in the finals,” he said. “He gave me a fight for all three periods.”

Catholic and Brother Martin agreed to split third place after grueling semifinals matches.

Results for other Louisiana schools included Rummel (11th), Jesuit (9th) and St. Paul’s (13th) in the championship bracket along with Teurlings Catholic (4th) land Live Oak (8th) in Bracket A.

In Bracket B, for fourth places pool finishers, East Ascension placed 2nd , Comeaux was 3rd and Brusly 7th.

In Bracket C, St. Louis of Lake Charles finished 5th and Dutchtown 7th.

Zachary (4th), Mandeville (5th), Airline (6th) and Lafayette High (8th) rounded out the finishers in Bracket D for sixth-place finishers.