MOULTRIE – The new year will bring the home debut for a Colquitt County High team that’s traveled a lot of miles to get in as much high caliber competition as possible heading into 2019.

The second annual Packer Classic wrestling tournament will be held in the high school gym on six mats Saturday beginning at 9:30 a.m. Coach Benjy Scarbor announced that 18 primarily South Georgia teams – most of whom Colquitt’s taken on at various locations since November – are going to gather in Moultrie for a traditional weight-class bracket format.

Among the visitors are Ware County, Lowndes, Tift County, Pelham, Cook, Cairo, Lee County, Fitzgerald and Coffee.

This is a typical weekend for Packer wrestlers with the big exception that this tournament is taking place at home. Beginning Nov. 10, there was only one weekend – after Thanksgiving – where Scarbor didn’t pack up everyone’s gear for a road trip either in Georgia or down south to Florida. Some of the trips were to Tifton, Valdosta and Adel, but Colquitt County also wrestled in the Capital City Classic at Lawton Chiles High School in Tallahassee and an extremely huge event staged at Osceola High School in Kissimmee, Fla.

Scarbor said the GHSA championships will be nothing like this Knockout Christmas Classic which had 40 teams representing eight states (Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia). Colquitt County, with only one wrestler placing in his weight class, was 24th in the final team standings. Georgia powerhouse Camden County High did not have any individual champions, but with a slew of high finishers tallied 191 team points for first place. Woodland-Cartersville tied for second with 185.

Nic Jarvis, Colquitt’s 220-pound senior, entered Kissimmee with 39 wins on the season. He started his run with three wins, including a 2-0 decision in the quarterfinals over Will Taylor of Brentwood Academy. That set up a semifinal match with Jose Valdez of Charlotte High School; both were state runners-up in 2018. Scarbor said the deciding points in a 3-1 loss for Jarvis were due to stalling calls made in the third period; the coach explained that stalling calls are judgment decisions on whether or not a wrestler is trying to score a takedown or intentionally pushing a foe out of bounds.

Scarbor added he did not agree with the rulings against Jarvis.

Jarvis, in the consolation rounds, went on to score a one-minute pin over Kenneth Crouse of South Dade and a third-place clinching pin in 3:45 against Jamal Brandon of Dallastown Area (Pa.)

Scarbor said this tournament exposed the Packers to numerous different styles of wrestling, and that they saw some more physical approaches than anything they see in South Georgia. The coach said they paid attention as a staff and looked to incorporate these tendencies in practice.

Other Packer wrestlers to score at the Knockout Christmas Classic were:

Ethan Sellers, 115 pounds: He won two straight matches in the consolation round by pin, then lost by technical fall in the fifth round. He entered the tournament with 38 wins on the season.

Timothy Brinson, 138 pounds: He won his first match by major decision, 10-0, and followed it with a 2-0 decision against Michael Brown of Hernando High. After losing by pin in the third round, Brinson won by pin in three minutes and lost by major decision to Cael Turnbull of Dallastown Area. He entered the tournament with 35 wins on the season.

Austin Paradice, 140 pounds: He won three straight matches in the consolation round, including a pin at 4:42, a 12-0 major decision and a sudden victory.

Cedric Wynn, 147 pounds: He went 1-1 in the consolation round.

NyQuavian McBurrows, 154 pounds: He went 1-1 in the consolation round.

Collin Crosby, 287 pounds: He went 1-1 in the consolation round.

All of this, Scarbor said, is practice for the 1-7A duals which will also be in Moultrie on Jan. 12. There are the usual injuries some Packers are getting over, and football players like Wynn and Michael Roberts are making their way into the lineup.

More of that “practice” was at the Wildcat Invitational hosted by Valdosta High Dec. 21-22, and here Jarvis suffered a setback to Chase Horne. He’s a familiar foe from the strong West Laurens High program in middle Georgia. Horne won in overtime in a close match where Scarbor said Jarvis couldn’t execute close takedown attempts. Otherwise, Jarvis had three pinfall wins at Valdosta over wrestlers from Cook, Dodge County and Lee County.

Nate Taylor of Colquitt placed second at 145 pounds. He scored pins against Pelham and West Laurens to get to the finals, where he lost to Lowndes.

Paradice finished third in the 138-pound bracket with a major decision, 15-4, against Valdosta. After a 5-0 loss to Lee County, he scored pins over Coffee and Suwannee of Florida.

Sellers placed fifth going 2-2 at 113, and Zach Kirkland was sixth going 3-2 at 126. Kirkland’s first loss was 8-6 against Pelham, and Sellers lost an 11-7 match vs. Valdosta.

Other Packers to hit the mat in Valdosta were Caden Summerlin, who dropped an 11-10 match at 120 to Tift County. Alex Rosales had six matches at 132 (including facing Brinson and winning 5-0). That was one of four wins, two by pin. McBurrows went 2-2 with a 3-1 loss to West Laurens, Jonathan Wickett went 3-2 at 160 with a 9-7 win over Tift, Demetrius Carter went 2-2 a 182, and Fulton King went 3-2 at 285 with a 4-2 win over Lowndes.

The Packers got a taste of Camden County wrestling plus more Sunshine State competitors at the Capital City Classic held Dec. 14-15. Jarvis was back in the familiar place of No. 1 in 220 with a 4-0 record. All were by pin, including Camden.

Paradice was second at 138 going 3-1, all matches going the distance. Wrestlers from Florida fell by major decision to Paradice, and he handled his Camden challenge to win 8-4.

Brinson wrestled eight times to finish third in 132. After a first-match loss 4-3 to Cairo, he pulled off seven wins in a row, five of which were by decision. All but one (Rosales) were against Florida foes.

Sellers also wrestled eight times to take fifth in 113. Kirkland went 3-1 vs. Florida for sixth at 126. Summerlin went 2-2, Rosales 4-2, Clint Folsom 2-2 (138), Taylor 2-2, Joseph Player 2-2 (145), McBurrows 2-2, Wickets 2-2 and King 2-2.