Bryson City – It has been a learning year for both first-year Murphy wrestling head coach Mike Catuto and his team. That continued Saturday at the Smoky Mountain Conference Wrestling championships, where the Bulldogs finished fourth out of five teams participating.
“We’ve come a long way from our first practice to today,” Catuto said. “And you can see a lot of improvement that these guys and girls have had. We’re just looking to kind of build on that next year and expand the team.”
With Murphy’s program basically starting from scratch this year and only sending six wrestlers to the conference meet, it was a challenge against more experienced wrestlers. Conference champion Robbinsville has one of the top 1A teams in the state, while Swain County had wrestlers in the finals of 13 of the 14 weight classes.
Sam Kessler and Aiden Smith finished third at 126 and 152 pounds, respectively, because of forfeits. Brandon Thrasher was the only Bulldogs wrestler to win a match, topping Cherokee’s Jessie Hernandez in the consolation semifinals. Thrasher finished fourth, as did Zach Kessler at 145 pounds, Deron Roberts at 160 pounds and Nathan Shaw at 182 pounds.
Catuto is waiting to see if some of his wrestlers will be invited to the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A West Regional championships at Allegheny on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 11-12, though Smith is looking to compete in the NCHSAA Girls Invitational on Saturday, Feb. 5.
While Murphy wrestlers were learning on the mat, Catuto was learning off of it. He has been a club wrestling coach before, but spent the year becoming familiar with how things are different at the high school level.
That includes becoming familiar with the website TrackWrestling, which is used for results, and hydration charts, which are used to help encourage safe weight loss if wrestlers want to drop a weight class.
The next step is continuing to grow awareness and keep the program stable. Catuto and fellow coach Justin Daugherty are planning to do some weight training and conditioning workouts at Murphy in the fall, which they plan to make open to anyone who is interested. With more familiarity on how the high school sports scene works, he plans to schedule more matches next year to get his team more experience.
However, the first priority is continuing to get more wrestlers, with the goal of having someone in all 14 weight classes. That starts with awareness about the program.
“(We want to) continue to build awareness out there that Murphy has a program,” Catuto said. “And we’re looking to continue to build it.”