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Courtesy photo Brown and first-year head coach Blake Germaine show off yet another medal for the Avon Park wrestling trophy case.

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published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Brown takes fifth at state

By DAN HOEHNE

daniel.hoehne@newssun.com

Surviving Friday's intense action at the FHSAA State Wrestling Championships was an accomplishment all unto itself.

The two representatives of Avon Park, Jose Torres and Dylan Brown, had made it through - with Brown guaranteed a medal after having won both his Friday matches.

Torres, however, had one more win to get before assuring himself the chance to bring home some hardware.

That chance would be taken away, though, early Saturday morning as Torres couldn't get past Fivay's Troy Reed, in an 8-4 decision.

"I couldn't be more proud of him," brother and Red Devil assistant coach Omar Torres said. "Two years ago, he was 135 pounds and was just getting through and learning. Suddenly last year he's a state qualifier and now he's one win away from a medal."

Solace could also be taken in the fact that Torres' two losses came to eventual state champion Chase Singletary of Somerset, and Reed, who would take home fourth place in the 113-pound weight division.

"Jose didn't look like he was wrestling like himself all weekend," head coach Blake Germaine said. "I don't know if it was him being nervous or from fighting the flu at the beginning of the week."

A similarly tough Saturday schedule awaited Brown, who had cruised to a 2-0 record Friday with second-round pins against Giancarlo Bennardo of American Heritage Delray Beach and Dylan Coley of Florida High.

But Saturday's competition jumped up to a whole other level as Brown first squared off with top-seed Max Tejada of Jacksonville Bolles, who took Brown down for the win.

Now out of contention for the state title, which Tejada would eventually win, Brown took on Jacksonville-University Christian's Gerrel Keith for a chance at a third-place medal.

It was a close battle throughout, but Keith would up eking out a 9-6 win and would then go on to claim third.

"Dylan wrestled well all weekend with the exception of his semis match," Germaine said. "He came out and tried to force a couple moves and got himself into trouble. But he will learn from this mistake and be ready for one more try next year."

Browns day and tournament would come to an easier-than-expected conclusion when Miami Jackson's Alex Cruz-Smith was injured in his previous match and couldn't go, giving Brown the win by default.

And though he was already assured of a medal coming into the day, this put the finishing touch on keeping Avon Park's streak alive of having at least one wrestler qualify for state and bring home a medal in each year of the program's seven-year existence.

Now under the tutelage of former Sebring state champion Blake Germaine and Torres, a medal winner himself as a Red Devil.

"It's kind of neat because I learned under coach (Ed) Brown and Blake comes with a very different approach," Torres said. "But while it's two different approaches, we've found ways to make them work together, which makes our guys that much better."

It was hard to argue with the results, especially with some doubt at the start of the season.

"We did keep the medal run going this year," Germaine said. "I was very proud of this because going into this year we were a very young team with only one senior.

"We also had two 10th graders and one 11th grader that were a match away from going to state this year," he continued. "I feel very confident going into next year that we should have multiple placers."