MOULTRIE – Led by Logan Paradice’s championship at 157 pounds, the Colquitt County wrestling team took a seventh-place finish at the Raja Bryan Memorial Invitational held Saturday at Ola High in McDonough.
Paradice, who signed last week to compete collegiately at the University of Northern Iowa, won all four of his matches by technical falls to claim his weight class.
His wins came over Cooper Begitschke from Raja Bryan champion Social Circle, Zane Bovenizer of West Forsyth, Aiden Waters of Glynn Academy and, in the first-place match, Dane Kracht, also of Social Circle.
The two-time state champion is now 7-0 for the season and 74-2 in his career at Colquitt County.
Social Circle was first in the 30-team event with 239.5 points to finish well ahead of host Ola High, which had 195.5.
Tift County was fifth with 133.5 points and finished two places ahead of the Packers, who had 128 points.
Lowndes was 13th. Cairo and Lee County finished 22nd and 23rd.
The Packers also received a third-place finish from Russell Flowers, who won his first two matches at 175 before dropping a 10-7 decision to Ian Horan of Lovett.
Flowers won the third-place match with an 8-5 decision over Mount Pisgah’s Christian Lange.
Cruz Grijalva was fourth and Cristobal Camarena was sixth, both in the 132-pound weight class.
Colquitt also got points from Randy Smith at 144; Andy Sanchez at 138; Rafael King at 215; Evan Flowers at 150; Britton Marshall at 138; and Benjamin Yingling at 126.
Colquitt County also had 17 wrestlers in the junior varsity competition, led by Tray Gomez, who won all five of his matches to finish first at 144 pounds.
Alex Barajas was second at 215; Kevin Acosta, fourth at 215; Sy Jones, sixth at 165; Connor Causey, seventh at 144; and Joel Gutierrez, eighth at 190.
Also competing for the junior varsity Packers were Juan Rivera, 120; Hector Gonzalez, 126; Diego Barrios, 132; Adrian Thornton and Seth Dorsey, 138; Brinson Williams, 144; Jayden Sharp, 157; Cheveiyo Barber, 165; Jordan Garcia and Cade Purvis, 175; and Paul Milligan, 190.
Six Colquitt County girls competed including London Coleman, who was second at 100/105, and Lesly Tercero, who was the runner-up at 170.
Allison Quiroz was fourth at 170.
Hanley Batista, Aileen Martinez and Lillian Brown also wrestled for Colquitt County.