Gardendale falls to Oxford in AHSAA Wrestling Duals Championship finals

BIRMINGHAM — Despite struggling for much of the match, Gardendale’s wrestling team was just one point behind Oxford with one bout to go in the AHSAA State Duals Championship Class 6A finals.

But Yellow Jackets heavyweight Clay Webb gave his team their second title in the two-year existence of the tournament with a pin of Rocket sophomore Dawson Cato in the final bout, as Oxford prevailed by a 30-23 score at the Crossplex Bill Harris Arena.

Gardendale started the match strongly, thanks to a pin by Alex Webb at 106 pounds and a decision by Russ Boackle at 120. But the Jackets won five of the next six weights, one by a major decision, and took the match lead and the momentum. (Carson Kim won the lone decision at 145 pounds during that stretch.)

The Rockets gained ground back with decisions by Trey Lewis (170) and Derrick Orvik (182), and after yielding points on a forfeit at 195, came back to within a point when Trevon Tannehill (220) scored a pin with 48 seconds left over Kobe Shumaker.

But Clay Webb secured the title for Oxford in short order with a fall in just 50 seconds, pushing his record for the season to 58-3, 48 of them by pin.

Rockets coach Brian Brasseal knew that young Cato would have his work cut out for him in the bout against Clay Webb, who lost by one point in the 2017 state individual championship and placed third the year before — and is also a five-star offensive lineman prospect, with scholarship offers in hand from Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.

“My heavyweight’s pretty good, but theirs is very, very good,” Brasseal said. “I knew it was going to be a really, really tough match, and I was hoping it wouldn’t come down to that. Cato’s real young and I didn’t want to put him in a situation like that.”

Still, the situation might have been avoided with more victories earlier in the match.

“We had opportunities to capitalize, and we didn’t do it,” Brasseal said. “When you have a great team like Oxford and you have opportunities, you have to capitalize on them. We had chances to get wins and didn’t.”

Oxford has won both editions of the AHSAA duals tournament, as well as last year’s traditional state championship. The Jackets and Rockets are likely to see a lot of each other again in this year’s traditional finals in Huntsville, but Brasseal hopes to get some other top teams to run a little interference against Oxford and give his squad a shot at the blue map.

“We’ll be in the mix, but we’ll have teams like Clay-Chalkville, Spanish Fort, Gulf Shores and McAdory who are going to knock some of their guys out,” Brasseal said. “It’s going to be a royal rumble right there.”