Southwest DeKalb’s Isaiah Scott (top), Dharrin Smith (bottom left) and Jerrel Baskins (bottom right) all won their respective weight classes in the Class 4A State Wrestling Championships.
DeKalb County brought home three gold medals and two silver from the GHSA State Wrestling Meet held in Macon recently.
Southwest DeKalb’s foursome dubbed the “Four Horsemen” all advanced to the state finals in their respective weight classes of the Class 4A State Tournament with three of them claiming gold medals with wins in the finals and propelling the Panthers to a third place finish.
Senior Dharrin Smith (26-2) was the first to wrestle to gold in winning the 157-weight class in a 5-3 decision over Troup’s Tim Dunn (43-8). Smith opened with a 10-3 quarterfinal decision over Walnut Grove’s Gareth Aderhold (30-14) and moved into the championship round with a 7-3 victory over North Hall’s Joey Crew (44-7).
Senior Jerrel Baskins completed a 24-0 season taking a tight 4-3 decision over Heritage-Catoosa’s Evan Wingrave (47-4) in the 175-weight class championship match. Baskins won his quarterfinal match 8-3 over Northwest Whitfield’s Daniel Soto (32-11). He qualified for the championship match with a major decision (12-2) over North Oconee’s Louden Schnake (21-11).
Junior Isaiah Scott (31-0) made it a triple horseman run by picking up a pin fall in 2:40 of his 215-weight class championship match versus Walnut Grove’s Parker Warren to finish perfect on the season. Scott made short work of Kade Hawathorne of North Hall with a fall in 0:34 in his quarterfinal win. He moved on to face his toughest test of the weekend as Lovett’s Aiden Kaufman pushed him before Scott picked up a 2-1 decision to move into the finals.
Jayden Hammonds (28-3), the Fourth Horseman, came up short in the quest for a Four Horseman sweep as he fell to Troup’s Bradon Bowen (59-9) at the 3:26 mark of his match. Hammonds advanced to the championship round with a pin (1:59) of Miller Grove’s Tyrone Williams (31-7) in the quarterfinals and a 12-6 decision over West Laurens’ Aiden Ingram (16-5) in the semifinals.
Southwest DeKalb made the podium in the Class 4A State Wrestling Championships with a third place finish.
The performance by the Four Horseman put Southwest DeKalb on the podium in third place in the team standings with 97 points. Lover (161) and Central-Carrollton (120.5) finished one-two ahead of the Panthers.
The other silver medal for DeKalb came in the form of Columbia’s Thawbaan As-Siddiq (36-3) who reached the Class 2A finals in the 126-weight class. He defeated East Jackson’s Joshua Smith (33-7) in a close 4-3 decision to reach the championship round. Rockmart’s Gunner Chambers (37-1) managed to pin As-Siddiq early in the match to prevent another gold from coming home to DeKalb.
Arabia Mountain had a pair of wrestlers finish in the Top 6 as Malik Conley (28-6) in 157 and Langston Blakely (34-10) in 175 both advanced to the state semifinals in Class 5A. The pair both came up short of reaching the consolation finals falling in tough matches in the consolation semifinals.
Stone Mountain’s Say Paw brought home a sixth place finish in the girls’ state championships.
See link for the DCSD State Wrestling results: