Murphy – The Bulldogs wrestling team started their 2024-25 season at the Maroon Devil Invitational. They will head to Andrews today for the Wild West Duels, where they will go head to head with the in-county rival Wildcats.
As the season gets underway, Murphy has been wrestling with a handful of students as the await the return of those who are on the Bulldogs’ varsity football team. With the first event under their belts, they will look ahead to the remaining duals and tournaments.
Bulldogs wrestling head coach Mike Catuto spoke about some of their goals for the season.
“We obviously want to improve on last season. We have a young team. We have a good amount of freshman,” he said.
“We have a talented team, regardless of what grade they’re in. We always want to do better than we did last year. Some of our goals in practice is we just want to be better today than we were yesterday.”
Catuto said his wrestlers will particularly work on their technique and cardio.
“We’ve worked on some strength training and things like that in the offseason. We’re of course working on cardio to make sure we’re in shape for six minutes or more of wrestling each match, but we definitely want to improve our technique so that we can work smarter not harder in some respects,” he said.
Catuto added that while are a young team this year, he hopes to see the program’s growth during matches.
“We do have a young team, but we do have a good number of returners that can help lead us as far as captains … We’ve been building the program for the last four years, coach Justin [Daugherty] and myself,” he said.
“When we took over the program, we started out with six kids – now we’re at roughly 20 just on the high school side of it. We’re really excited to see that growth and see that translated on the mat, where they can show off their hard work.”
Catuto said the group of freshman on the team this year all wrestled last year and did well. They will have multiple middle school conference champions on the high school team.
“We have multiple kids who are real good technique wrestlers. Jake Miller, our senior, is a good wrestler. We have another junior coming back, Dalton Farmer, who has always been really competitive,” the coach said.
“And also we have some freshman coming up, like I said, we have our two middle school conference champions – Anthony Catuto and Trenton Cook. I’m excited to see how that translates to the high school level.”
Miller finished second in his weight class during last season’s Smoky Mountain Conference tournament. Farmer also finished in second in his weight class. Josiah Niebla also competed at last season’s tournament and finished third at his weight.
Miller, Farmer and Niebla qualified for the 1A West Regionals, but did not advance. Catuto said there are not any specific events that he is looking forward to compared with others, but he wants the team to peak as they approach regionals and state.
“Nothing specific, but we’re always gearing ourselves toward regionals at the end of the season,” he said.
“I’ve told the guys that I’m not as concerned how they wrestle November, December, but we want to start hitting our stride in January and early February. When we hit regionals, that’s when we’re getting into some of our best wrestling so that way we can peak at regionals and state.”
Schedule breakdown
Following the meet in Andrews, they will return home Friday, Dec. 6, to host the Wildcats. They will then head to Rabun County, Ga., at 6 p.m. Tuesday Dec. 10.
The Bulldogs will then head north for the Devil Duals at Swain County High School on Saturday, Dec. 14. On Tuesday, Dec. 17, the will host Towns County, Ga., then take on Robbinsville on Wednesday, Dec. 18.
To kick off the new year, them Dogs will take on Enka on Jan. 4. On Jan. 10, they will compete in the SMC Dual Tournament. The next day, they will return to Robbinsville on Jan. 11 for the HOOT Dual Team Tournament.
On Jan. 17, the Dogs return home for the Battle of the Belt against Franklin and Hayesville. They will then head to Robbinsville for the third and final time during the regular season for the James Orr Invitational on Jan. 18.
Murphy returns home for Senior Night on Jan. 21, when they host Rosman and Brevard. They will then head to Andrews for the second time during the season for the SMC Conference Tournament at 5 p.m. Jan. 25.
Feb. 1 is the first and second round of the men’s team duals. Feb. 5 is the third and regional round of the men’s team duals. The men’s team dual championship will be held on Feb. 8 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Men’s individual regionals will be Feb. 14-15 at Cherryville. Men’s and women’s individual state championships will take place on Feb. 21-22 at Greensboro Coliseum.