CHATTANOOGA---The final day at the Tennesse State wrestling eournament was a culmination of a lot of effort for the Tullahoma contingent, starting six months ago with fund,raising at several street corners in and around Tullahoma. The booster club chaired by Janet and Eric Roper, raised enough money to buy new middle school singlets and pay for all the travel expenses for the varsity team.
  Then there was the shut down of the wrestling progam for a couple of weeks in December to deal with a staph skin infection and at the same time one of their lead stars, Cody Quick, broke his finger and wound up sitting out six weeks with a cast. But, midway through the 40-match season the team began to get healthy and peaked to a level not ever seen in Tullahoma wrestling history. They achieved an undefeated record in Region 5, which propelled them to a 5th-place state duals finish and later a Region 5 tournament championship with a near 90 point victory over their closest rival.
  It is not unusual for THS to land 3 to 5 wrestlers in the state tournament, and the previous high was eight, but this year there were a record 11 representatives with only Soddy, Bradley, Ooltewah, and Greeneville having more than Tullahoma. The first day of the tournament the THS team powered through the first round with 7 of their 11 wrestlers winning.
  The second round found most of the wrestlers dropping into the consolations where Rene Karteron and Cody Quick strung together several wins to finish with 5th-place medals. Tullahoma had its best ever team finish, 10th place. The total of 60 points and 17 team wins illustrates how far the team came in one year after finishing with no points in the same tournament last year.
  Seniors Cory Smith and Rene Karteron will be graduating from the team, but there are 7 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, and 2 Freshmen returning next year. Next weekend the team will be participating in the Freshman-Sophmore State Tourney in Dickson before bringing the season to a close.