The Dawson County High School wrestling team finally filled a full squad and the results showed it.

Head Coach Arron Haynes hasn't been able to wrestle with a full squad as he waited on football to finish.

The results showed the difference as the Tigers captured a team title at the North Oconee Duals Saturday in Bogart.
Dawson County defeated Southwest DeKalb, 48-30, Heritage (Conyers), 51-24, Richmond Hill, 39-37 and Grovetown, 39-36, to take the title.

"It was a great weekend of wrestling against some quality and physical competition," Haynes said. "It is good to have our football players back out after an amazing run in the state playoffs. The biggest and most obvious difference was that we no longer have to forfeit weight classes.

"We are still a very young team with eight starters that are either freshmen or sophomores, and three of the others are first year starters. We have the potential to be pretty good with a strong core of returning starters leading a very talented group of young wrestlers."

Jeremy Whalen, junior, Wyatt Smith, freshman, Kelton LeBaron, freshman, Ethan Cowart, junior, Jordan Waddell, junior and Brenden Capps, senior, all had a good tournament for the Tigers.

"To be honest, the entire team had a good weekend with each person standing out at different moments and pulling through to make up where some others had fallen due to inexperience. Even our second stringers stepped in and had major contributions," Haynes said.

He believes his team will improve even more once the wrestlers who just joined from football are able to practice more.

"Everyone is different. Wrestling is an endurance sport, whereas football is more of a short burst type of sport, so the changeover in their cardiovascular system takes a little time. They quickly realize that they need to win early in the match until they are in better shape," Haynes said.

The Tigers will wrestle at 5:30 p.m. Friday at White County High School. The meet will be a tri-match with White County and Madison County.