First Posted: 12/13/2014

LUMBERTON — Lumberton wrestling coach Jamie Bell wasn’t upset about his team’s third-place finish at the Pirate Invitational dual tournament the team hosted on Saturday. In fact, he felt it was a big step for his team in learning to wrestling not as individuals, but with a team mentality.

“We’re still really a young team and I wanted our guys to get used to that team mentality,” Bell said. “Some kids can get it confused that (wrestling’s) more individual than anything, but I’m still trying to build that team mentality.”

The Pirates’ 3-2 record on the day put them behind Cary, which went 5-0, and Fuquay-Varina, which went 4-0, but for Bell, the chance for his wrestlers to see quality programs was worth the experience.

“I’m a firm believer in the whole ‘monkey see, monkey do’ philosophy,” Bell said. “If our team can watch another team like Cary or Fuquay or any of these other teams that are out here that are on a big team mentality that work together, if they can see that, they can get hooked into that.”

The duals included teams from all three local schools with wrestling programs competed against teams from Douglas Byrd, Ashley, Western Harnett and Triton, as well as Cary and Fuquay-Varina.

Bell said it all comes down to rebuilding the state of wrestling in Robeson County and showing local teams how passionate other schools are about the sport.

“I think the biggest thing is that they see somebody else cares about wrestling as passionately as maybe they do,” Bell said. “I think in this area, wrestling doesn’t get as much love from their peers as other sports, but if they see that there are other schools that are passionate about this sport, you can kind of get them into that same mentality.”

The Pirates’ third-place finish was good enough to beat out Ashley and Western Harnett, who both finished at 2-2. Douglas Byrd and Purnell Swett both had 2-3 records, with Triton and St. Pauls both finishing 0-4.

St. Pauls coach Matthew Anglin had a similar mentality to Bell, wanting to build confidence in his team that they could compete with bigger schools in the same way they compete with smaller schools.

“We were wrestling 3A and 4A schools and I think we competed pretty tough especially for being so green,” Anglin said. “There are some things we can work on like finishing matches. We started several matches real well, but just didn’t finish them.”

Anglin said even though the Bulldogs weren’t able to win a dual, seeing how bigger schools with successful progams compete will help his team in the long run.

“Cary was here today,” Anglin said. “They are one of the winningest teams in the state’s history. The biggest thing is (seeing) how the kids wrestle, how the programs work, how the whole dual match rolls and also knowing that no matter how tough a kid is, it’s just you and him.”

Purnell Swett assistant coach Joey Farnsworth carried on the sentiment of both Bell and Anglin.

“I’m hoping for my guys to see that next level of wrestling,” he said. “Getting people from all the way in Raleigh, there are some really top notch teams and it gives our guys a better measure of what they need to get to.”

Purnell Swett was at a disadvantage at the start of the invitational, with no wrestlers in the weight classes about 160, but Farnsworth said he was still proud of the way they fought.

“Overall they did good,” he said. “We are a young team, but we still put up some numbers on the board. The kids that were there fought hard.”

Farnsworth said the Rams did a particularly good job of finishing moves from the bottom position, and that was the key to the wins they got.

“They were good at coming out of the bottom, getting escapes and reversals and capitalizing on them, because a lot of our points came from pins and that was big in winning the two matches against Triton.”