Thursday, January 11, 2024, the McIntosh Chiefs Boys Wrestling Program went to Northgate High School for the Region 3 5A Duals.

McIntosh entered the tournament as the fourth seed and faced an uphill battle to qualify for the 5A State Dual Championship. To qualify for the State Dual Championship, a team had to place as one of the top 2 teams in the region.

McIntosh started the night off against Charles Drew High School. The Chiefs jumped out to a great start and won the match 48-28.

McIntosh then had to face the number one seed Harris County High School. McIntosh battled hard, going toe to toe with Harris County but lost the match 45-27. McIntosh then faced Northgate High School and beat Northgate 52-24. McIntosh then faced Northside Columbus, which bested McIntosh (42-33) early in the wrestling season.

Kasen Gebhardt started off against Northside at 126 pounds and won the match by fall, giving McIntosh the early lead 6-0. Brayden Petras went on and pinned his opponent and gave McIntosh the 12-0 lead. At the end of the match, a team point was deducted from Northside Columbus for unsportsmanlike conduct making the score 12 to negative 1. Jack Maslowski went out and lost a tough match by decision, and now McIntosh was winning 12-2.

Graiden Garcia wrestled very tough and lost his match by decision, and McIntosh was now up 12-5. Yoshio Mayer then went out and won by decision, and the score is now 15-5.

Connor Donnelly Went out and wrestled a very hard match and ended up getting pinned, and now the score is 15-11. Henry Julian won his match by pin, which allowed McIntosh to be up 21-11. Jack Lavinder won his next match by pin, and the score was now 27-11.

Ajibola Batiste wrestled next and beat his opponent by decision, and the score was now 30-11. McIntosh Forfeited 215, so now the score was 30-17. Boris Zdravkov lost his match by pin, and the score became 30-23. Patrick Ward won his match by fall and scored 36-23. Aiden Soy-Nin lost his match, making the score 36-29. Brooks White wrestled a good match but fell short and lost by a pin, making the final score 36-35.

McIntosh heads to Jefferson High School on January 19th to compete in the Class 5A State Duals. — Special to The Citizen.