Pirates growing stronger

With district competition starting a month from today, Crystal River has every right to feel confident.

The Pirates are 9-4 heading into tonight's meet at Lecanto and looking like one of the area's best.

"We've got a pretty good group of athletes, and I think we can match up with anybody in the county," coach Bill Tovine said.

Tovine said Lecanto will be a good tune-up for this weekend's Springstead Invitational. Crystal River finished fourth in last season's event, also known as the Dr. Batista Invitational.

Ten of the 16 competing teams wrestled in the Brooksville Kiwanis Invitational in December. Hernando, Chamberlain, Zephyrhills, Gulf and Crystal River finished in the top 10 in the 19-team tournament, which Tovine said was comparable talent-wise to the Springstead Invitational and the toughest tourneys on this side of Florida.

"You'd have to go all the way down to Brandon or all the way up to Wakulla to get a tougher tournament," Tovine said.

After dropping a meet to Hernando last week, Tovine said his grapplers have turned in some solid practices and are back to where they were prior to the holiday break, when floridakids.net ranked them as the 13th-best squad in Class A.

Tovine kicked 125-pound Cale Trenary, who was someone the Pirates counted on for scoring, off the team, saying the senior's work ethic wasn't up to par. Trenary was an All-Citrus/Hernando honorable-mention pick last season.

Filling his spot will be freshman Joe Bertine, a natural 125-pounder who will not have to drop weight.

CITRUS: Citrus finished third in Saturday's North Marion Invitational. Six Hurricanes made the finals and winners included Joe Liptrap (152), Scott Mauller (130) and Courtney Henry (189).

'Canes coach Sean Furniss said Henry, a sophomore who usually wrestles at 171, has been a surprise.

"He's just really come around lately in terms of practice and match and attitude -- it's a total change," Furniss said.

"Our team is really benefitting from him wrestling that much better. In my eight years of wrestling, he's one of the most physically gifted kids I've ever seen," Furniss said.

The 2-3 'Canes also defeated Lecanto last week, giving Furniss, a first-year coach and former Panther, a win against his old school. Citrus lost to county-rival Crystal River on Dec. 4 in its first meet of the season, but is steadily improving.

The 'Canes wrestle at Springstead today and play host to Central next week.

LECANTO: With the Panthers 0-2 entering tonight's meeting with Crystal River, head coach Dana Wilkes has been trying to rally his troops.

"I'm challenging the kids to do it for themselves, and I've been wrestling with them a lot more in practice hoping that will help," Wilkes said.

"We've been doing the same thing for the last six years here. I've changed a little bit, but we're not going to change my whole practice around because I know what we're doing works."

In last week's 48-30 loss to Citrus, the Panthers got wins from Brandon Glantz (135), Dustin Cummings (140), Beau Guess (145), Jesse Navarro (171), Lucas Williams (189) and Steven Brainard (215). But Wilkes said other than Brainard, Cummings and Glantz, there has not been any level of consistency.

Now Glantz is out for three weeks with hernia problems, and either his brother, Corbin, or Dustin Whitelaw will be taking his place.

That leaves the Panthers a little shorthanded heading into the Springstead Invitational.

"Hopefully this weekend they'll come out and wrestle like they haven't wrestled this year so far," Wilkes said. "To be honest, I really don't know what to expect from these guys."

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