Russell Hedges
rhedges@bossierpress.com
The Airline Vikings added another trophy to their 2013 haul Saturday, winning the inaugural Bossier Parish Wrestling Championships meet at Bossier High.
The meet replaced the Bossier City Championships, which included only Bossier, Parkway and Airline.
Airline went undefeated in the tournament, defeating Parkway 47-32, Bossier 57-24, Haughton 50-15 and Benton 48-27.
“It’s big,” Airline coach Joey Burton said of the winning the first parish tournament. “It’s good for the area to include Haughton and Benton, to give them an extra championship to wrestle for. It’s a little more prestigious for the kids to win. It’s good for the parish. At the regional the top four teams were from Bossier Parish. It just says a lot about the kids in this area.”
Airline’s JuJu Jones won the 120-pound weight division in the Bossier Parish Championships Saturday at Bossier High.
Airline won the Northwest Regional meet on Feb. 8.
Burton said both the regional and parish championships were simply the culmination of a season of hard work by his wrestlers.
“Hopefully we’re peaking at the right time,” he said “Like I told the kids, we don’t wrestle for the first week of the season, we don’t wrestle for our tournament or anybody’s local tournament. We wrestle for regionals, parish and state championships.”
Six Airline wrestlers won individual parish titles — Josh Partin (113 pounds), JuJu Jones (120), Christian Walden (126), Harrison Hooper (170), Keegan Gilligan (195) and Emilio Rogers (220).
Other parish champions were Parkway’s Garret Strozier (106), Parkway’s Nathan Pitts (132), Parkway’s Hunter Huckaby (138), Haughton’s Pearson Harbour (145), Benton’s Andre’ Dean (152), Benton’s Jordan White (160), Bossier’s Jalen Oliver (182) and Benton’s Taylor Chauncey (285).
The LHSAA Wrestling State Tournament is Friday and Saturday at the Ponchartrain Center in New Orleans.
