Rockmart High School Head Wrestling Coach John Garner had high hopes going into the Mt. Zion matches.

The team competed well, finishing up in fourth out of 12 teams there.

“The guys did good,” said Garner. “Dennis Wolfe suffered his first loss but won his weight class tournament championship with four area teams competing, so it was a great night.”

Daniel Cook also came in second in his weight class with his only loss of the night being to last year’s state champ in the weight class.

The third-place finish was brought in by Zach Estes, followed by Justin Torline and Kendall Adams, both finishing in fourth in their weight class.

With this being the team's first tournament, they had to adjust quickly to the more heads up wrestling. The guys got a chance to watch area wrestlers and watch other skilled wrestlers as well which will prove to give them an edge in the future.

The current record for this year’s team is 10-5, well above last year’s team wins.

A match on Dec. 15 brought wins over Armurchee, Darlington and Coosa but the team suffered a loss to Darlington.* The team has beaten Coosa four times now and Armurchee twice, giving them strong area confidence.

Garner has noticed the guys that were losing their matches are coming back and beating the wrestlers from the other schools that they suffered a loss to which will lead to more big match wins.

To read the complete story, please visit our prep sports Web site at www.prepcentralonline.com. Once on that Web site, highlight at the top of the page "teams and players" and then click on Georgia. Once that box comes up, click the Rockmart team page to view the rest of this story and other Rockmart sports stories.

*Correction: After reviewing the interview with Head Coach John Garner, the writer has determined that Rockmart also defeated Darlington in the Dec. 15 matchup.