By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

After a hectic tournament schedule last weekend, county wrestling teams  won’t get a break this week as Osceola will host its Danny Byron Duals Friday and Saturday and several other teams will travel to Class 3A state champion Brandon for the Graves Invitational.

Gateway hosted the Troy Smith Duals last week, where Celebration reached the championship pool despite a roster depleted by the absence of five starters.

The Storm downed local rival Harmony, 39-36, and beat Seffner Armwood, 42-36.

Celebration lost to eventual tournament champion Northport.

Celebration was led by unbeaten 152-pound J.J. Francis, 17-0, who pinned four opponents and moved up a class to beat the state’s No. 1-ranked 160-pounder for the championship. He was selected as the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler.

Heavyweight Alvaro Norena remained unbeaten, 17-0, for  Celebration.

The Storm finished the weekend with a 13-5 duals record, including a 45-30 win at St. Cloud Friday.

The host Panthers Saturday also competed short-handed, missing four starters.

Alex Velez (112), a sixth-place finisher at state last year, won all five of his matches to boost his career wins mark to 88, 42 short of the school record held by former state champion Jose Vazquez, now a GHS assistant coach.

Christian Vazquez (152) was 4-1, his only loss coming against state-ranked Tim Goff, of Astronaut,

Gateway’s Josh Pizarro (195), Woodly Deseme (285) and Francisco Pico (126) all won four matches.

The Panthers will compete at Brandon.

Harmony Coach Chris Todd, who also will take his team to Brandon this weekend, said many of his young wrestlers performed well at the Gateway tournament.

Heavyweight Andrew Davis was 4-1 and Chris Furber (106) also was impressive, Todd said.

“I like the way our freshmen that were starting their first varsity match wrestled,” he said. “I thought we wrestled well for our first tournament of the season. We just have to keep getting better as the season progresses.”

Osceola’s Fox Baldwin (138) won the Cougar Invitational at Tampa last weekend over Spencer Rickman, of Collins Hill, Ga., one of the nation’s elite high school programs.

Osceola finished third overall behind Brandon and Collins Hill at a tournament that drew many of the Southeast’s best programs including Camden County, Ga., South Dade and Springstead.

Tim Locksmith (132) was the runner-up in his weight class, while Ariel Dominguez (106) placed third.

Kenny Martin (152), Spencer Lacey (160), Chris Pagan (170), Jhalen Flanders (182) and Rashad Marshall (195) all were fourth.

The Danny Byron Duals, formerly known as the Kowboy Kup, was renamed in honor of the 2007 OHS graduate who was killed in an accident in Melbourne last summer. Byron placed third in Class 3A in 2007.

Joining OHS at the Byron Duals are St. Cloud, Oviedo, Olympia, Manatee, Lake Gibson, Jensen Beach, Fort Pierce Central, Dunedin, Countryside and New Orleans Jesuit.