Hayden Suggs and Shelby Burnette tangle during Colquitt County High wrestling practice Thursday.

MOULTRIE – There’s so much talk of history being made among winter sports programs at Colquitt County High. Wrestling under coach Evan Goff would love to get into that conversation. There’s a chance for that on Saturday when the Packer grapplers host the Area 1-7A duals, a four-team round-robin tournament where the two best will advance to Macon the following weekend for GHSA double-elimination competition.

As the year 2016 was ending on the calendars, Goff and the Packers had a loaded schedule of wrestling logging a lot of miles in Georgia and out of state. Much of what Colquitt did was not in a dual format, like the Border Wars at South Walton Beach, Fla., or the Coastal Clash in North Charleston, S.C., but it gave his athletes a look at top quality wrestlers and a chance to improve their own game. And it may be that, in the area duals, Goff will see what the Colquitt County lineup can do as a whole for the first time all season.

In a dual, each weight class is represented, and winning results earn team points (six for a pin, three for decision, four for major decision of more than eight points, and five for tech fall, which is a 15-point decision). All four teams in the area will face the other three. The Packers face Camden County first, Lowndes second and Tift County third.

The top two teams qualify for the state meet, but there is always a chance of a tie somewhere. Goff said the first tiebreaker deals with any unsportsmanlike conduct or flagrant misconduct calls. Then, he said it would come down to near falls and total points scored.

Of all four teams, Tift County comes in with the most recent history of success. The Blue Devils placed fourth in Class 6A last January.

“Camden is one of the best we’ve seen in the southeast,” said Goff. “They’ve already received some national rankings. It’s going to be hard for any team to uproot such an established program. They are dominant from 106 up. I think they are weaker in upper weights this year. They have the ability to bump a few wrestlers around and take points from your best kids. They have a lot of flexibility in their lineup to create advantageous matchups.

“Tift, like us, has had some issues, some injuries. They are probably a stronger dual team than us on paper. And Lowndes is much improved from last year. They graduated a big class a couple of years ago and steadily rebuilt.”

Whoever goes, Goff said somebody has a chance to finish in the top six of the newly formed 7A class.

“We haven’t done a lot of these,” said Goff. “I felt our team was going to be a stronger traditional formatted team. We sought out a lot of the big invitational tournaments where the kid could get used to moving on without the comfort of the team surrounding him.

“I think we are still going to do well, but I focused our efforts on improving as an individual.”

In all of the November-December events, Goff got showings he expected from the likes of Nic Jarvis at 220 and Shelby Burnette. There was also a major injury issue for 145 senior Hayden Suggs, a broken hand from which he is just now recovering and practicing. This happened during warmups for a semifinal match in the Creekview Invitational in Fairburn.

“I’ve been running,” said Suggs on how he stayed in shape while recuperating the hand. “I come in here and do a little shadow wrestling. When I was wearing my cast I couldn’t do a whole lot of actual wrestling. It would hurt them with the bulky cast.”

Shadow wrestling, as he explains, is wrestling “air.” That’s pretending someone is in front of you and you do your moves. But he said it’s nothing like having someone to grab and get things correct.

“We knew coming in we had five or six really strong wrestlers that needed to be exposed to better competition,” said Goff. “The (other) classes we filled with youth. That’s why we’re not as good a dual team. I wanted to see some of the best teams in the south. If we get used to wrestling those type of teams, we can progress a lot quicker as a program.

“We’ve just been hit with the injury bug among other things. Burnette’s had a fifth-place, a third-place, a second-place and a first-place finish consecutive weekends, gradually improving. But he missed the Coastal Clash out sick. We haven’t put our best lineup on the mat yet. This weekend we’re hoping everyone lines up in the right spots. We have a shot.”

“I’ve been competing for the past six years, and it’s time to finally make something of it,” said Suggs. “I can score a lot of points from tilts and rack up a lot of back points. The weeks I was out, I would help my teammates, tell them what they’re doing wrong. Our lineup is pretty much freshman and sophomores. If we can keep the talent in the room, then we’ll have a great team in about two years.”

Suggs then went long and hard on the mat with Burnette, both breathing heavily afterwards.

“I’ve had a pretty strong season,” said Burnette. “We’re coming up on a pretty big match. Camden’s going to be really tough. But the real match is going to be against Tift. If we beat them … it’ll be a pretty big deal.

“A lot of the younger guys are getting experience, which is really good for them. If coach Goff keeps doing what he’s doing, there’s no doubt the next generation will be even better. We have middle school kids who practice with us sometimes who are showing a lot of potential. It’ll be exciting to see what they do.”

Jarvis has a shot to pile four more wins on his record. Even when the stage gets bigger, Jarvis scores one pin after another and stands at 35-2.

“One of his losses comes to a kid from Alabama who won state last year,” said Goff. “He lost in overtime to him. His only other loss came to a runner-up from Ashley Ridge, S.C. That kid’s probably one of the most versatile 220s I’ve ever seen. (Jarvis) lost in triple overtime to him. Had a chance where he did a stand-up and was about to cut away, and if he does he wins. It got returned. It came down to one second. That was in the semis, and he went on to win the tournament by 8-0 in the finals.”

This is Jarvis’ sophomore year, and Goff recalled a match from his freshman campaign with Archer High’s Quinn Miller, who is signed to wrestling scholarship with Virginia. The coach is hoping down the road to see the rematch.

There’s been consistency from Vic Castanon. Goff said he had some early losses at 160, but then he dropped to 152 – a more natural weight – and earned victories over previous state qualifiers.

“When he’s wrestling confident, he can be as good as anybody,” said Goff. “The 152 bracket at the Coastal Clash might have been the toughest of any of the weights. 152’s been a meat grinder all year. He’s been in the mix, beat a lot of good wrestlers and lost to some good ones. The good thing is we still have him another year.”

Go to the light side of the order for 106 Jared Collum, who has emerged from junior varsity to have an “awesome” season so far. Goff said this is a time where some 113-pounders will drop down, and so Collum may see stronger, more athletic foes.

“I’ve challenged Jared to work on some areas,” said Goff. “He’s been one of our primary guys.

“Deonte Edwards, a freshman, has come on of late. He was wrestling 138, having to wrestle up five or six pounds. Now he’s at 126 and coming off a good weekend in a tough tournament (at Lambert).”