Ready to rumble

The Avon Park and Sebring wrestling squads had their final tune-up in preparation for this week's district wrestling meets.

The Red Devils and Blue Streaks competed in Saturday's 18-team Polk County Invitational at George Jenkins High School, and each team had a moderate amount of success on the mat.

Avon Park junior Charles Hubbard placed second in the 160-pound weight class after losing in the finals to Psalms Radway of Lakeland George Jenkins.

Hubbard, who qualified for last year's state meet, lost for the third time this season to the talented Radway.

"Charles wrestled well to reach the finals," said Red Devils co-coach Ed Brown. "Radway is his nemesis and his style of wrestling is difficult for Charles to figure out. He wrestled strong in the finals, but just didn't get the job done."

Avon Park freshman Johnny Baldridge had an impressive showing in the 103-pound weight class and sophomore Miguel Perkins had a solid effort in the 112-pound division in his first action of the year.

"The competition was excellent and all of our guys wrestled hard," Brown said. "Johnny continues to improve with each match he wrestles and Miguel gained some valuable experience in his first meet of the season.

"We're a fairly young squad that's still battling inconsistency, and if we don't get that straightened out this week, it's going to be the end of the season for some of our guys."

At the district meet, the top four wrestlers from each weight class advance to the regional competition.

Sebring senior Michael Polatty led the way for the Blue Streaks last Saturday with a second-place finish in the 140-pound weight class.

"Michael wrestled well and lost to a kid that we'll see at districts," said Sebring coach Josh Miller. "He has had a solid season and just needs to tighten up a couple of things to be a force at the district meet.

"We're bruised and banged up and we only took six guys to the Polk County meet because we wanted to give them a chance to heal up as much as possible before the district meet."

Sebring hosts the eight-team Class 2A-District 6 meet on Friday at noon in the Blue Streaks gym, where the top four wrestlers from each weight class advance to the regional competition.

"We're in a very competitive district," said Miller. "We should be at full force by Friday and I'm hoping we send a bunch of guys on to regionals.

"We want to win as many weight classes as possible, because the higher your seed, the easier the bracket will be at regionals."

Avon Park will compete in the Class 1A-District 7 meet on Saturday at McKeel Academy (Lakeland), and the Red Devils are looking to peak at the right time.

"Our district is real tough and we're hoping to have as many wrestlers qualify for regionals as possible," said Brown. "Mulberry and Auburndale have some quality wrestlers and we're just hoping the guys come out and wrestle strong.

"Anything can happen this time of year and the guys will be ready to go."