MOULTRIE — Colquitt County’s Logan Paradice took second place in the 35th annual National High School Coaches Association’s wrestling Nationals.
The two-time Georgia High School Association state champion won six straight bouts in the junior division’s 145-pound weight class before losing by a fall to Dorian Olivarez of Houston, Texas, in the finals of the championships, held April 5-7 in Virginia Beach, Va.
The runner-up finish earned Paradice a high school All-American designation.
Paradice won his first high school state championship at 132 pounds as a freshman in 2022 and won again in February in Macon, taking the title at 150 pounds.
He was undefeated for the Packers this past season and lost only twice as a freshman.
Paradice, who has committed to wrestle collegiately at Northern Iowa, won his first match in Virginia Beach, pinning Joel Silvernail of Edgewood, Ind., in the Round of 64.
His second win was a 14-8 decision over Ian Fritz of Hampstead, N.C., and he followed with a 15-4 major decision over Sparks, Nev.’s Abner Lopez.
His 17-9 major decision over Naples, Fla.’s Michael Kersey sent him to the quarterfinals, where he won by a fall over Connellsville, Pa.’s, Evan Petrovich, who has already committed to wrestle at Pitt.
In the semifinals, Paradice took a 2-1 decision over Chesterfield, Virginia’s Tyler Hood.
But he couldn’t get by Olivarez.
Another Colquitt County wrestler became an All-American when Alexander Barrajas finished sixth in the middle school division in Virginia Beach.
Barrajas, who wrestled at 230 pounds, won four of his six matches.
Of this and that:
• When Bainbridge visits to play Colquitt County on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium in the Aug. 2, preseason scrimmage, the Bearcats will be led by a head coach who is no stranger to Packer football.
When Jeff Littleton left Bainbridge earlier this year to become the head coach at Tift County, he was replaced by Jay Walls, who was the Blue Devils head coach from 2005-2011.
Walls has spent the last 12 seasons at Navarre (Fla.) High School near Pensacola, where he won 102 games and took three teams to the state semifinals.
In his seven years at Tift County, Walls led the Blue Devils to a 44-34 record. His 2006 team went 12-2 and lost in the semifinals to Roswell.
But after Tift went 8-4 in 2008, his final three Blue Devils teams went 3-7, 5-5 and 3-7.
He was 3-4 against Colquitt County while leading the Blue Devils.
Tift beat Colquitt three straight from 2006-2008, but then lost to the Packers 28-10 in 2009; 63-28 in 2010; and 46-12 in 2011.
Walls is taking over a Bainbridge program that went 91-46 in 11 years under Littleton, who led the Bearcats to five region titles and the 2015 Class 5A state championship.
When the Bearcats visit Moultrie in August, it will mark the first time the teams have met since 2007, when the Bearcats won 23-22 in Bainbridge.
Colquitt is 20-6 all-time against the Bearcats.
• Speaking of Tift County, the school will rejoin Region 1 in the highest classification — which will be 6A — next season.
And the Blue Devils baseball team is likely to add some quality to a region that already includes Lowndes, the five-time region champion and 2023 Class 7A state champion.
Under coach Greg Williams — and former Packer — Taylor Barber, the Blue Devils are 22-4 and just clinched the Region 1-6A championship with a 13-2 record.
It was the first region title for Tift County since 2015 and just the second since 1990.
• Colquitt County outfielder Cayden Parker has received the Region 1-7A male athlete scholarship.
The school’s STAR Student is headed to Georgia Southern to study engineering.
• Emily Allegood leads the Florida SouthWestern softball team in several categories, including batting average, with a .404 mark.
The freshman former Lady Packer also leads the No 4-ranked Bucs in at bats, with 141; hits, with 57; and triples, with six.
She is tied for the team lead in home runs with four and is second in runs batted in with 42.
And in the circle, she is 5-0 with a 1.37 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 46 innings of work.
• Another former Colquitt County assistant now has a head coaching job.
Phillip Brown, who helped coach the Colquitt County linebackers in 2016, has been named the head coach at Dodge County.
It will be his first head coaching assignment.
Brown coached the linebackers at Valdosta last season.
Dodge County was 1-9 under head coach Thomas Smith last season. The Indians will play in Region 2-A Division II this fall. Brown will be the program’s fifth head coach since 2018.
