Brazelton wins title at Rex Avery Invitational

Holden Brazelton is only a freshman.

But the St. Joseph-Ogden High School wrestler is quickly making a name for himself.

Brazelton shined on Saturday at the Rex Avery Invitational held at Petersburg PORTA, winning the 120-pound weight class. He was the only SJO wrestler to finish in the top six, helping the Spartans tie for 18th at the 25-team event with 46 points. Carlinville and Farmington also registered 46 points.

Tremont won the tournament with 240.5 points as Canton (157.5), Auburn (157), Kewanee (126) and Shelbyville (119) rounded out the top five schools.

Brazelton opened his tournament stay with a bye before defeating Keegan Murray of Hillsboro by pin in 2 minutes, 40 seconds in the second round. Brazleton then faced Jayden Frainer of PORTA in the quarterfinals, securing a pin in 1:43.

He moved on to wrestle Braydon Campbell of Ridgeview, with Brazelton finishing off a hard-fought and close 7-6 decision to advance to the championship match. He then kept his tournament run going with an impressive 3-1 overtime decision against Calvin Miller of Shelbyville to claim his first tournament championship of his high school career.

Conrad Miller added a seventh-place finish at 160 and Quincy Jones finished eighth at 220 to give the Spartans their two other place-winners.

Miller beat Gavan Rhodes of Shelbyville by pin in 27 seconds in the seventh-place match after receiving two byes into the quarterfinals before he lost a 12-0 major decision to eventual champion Hunter Fox of Knoxville and then sustained a 3-2 loss to Seth Kenter in the fifth-place semifinal match.

Jones got a bye into the second round, where he pinned Dalton Hutchison of Knoxville in 1:52 to advance to the quarterfinals. But Jones lost by pin in 43 seconds to John Rathbun there before losing by pin in 1:13 in a fifth-place semifinal match to Trevor Putman of Canton and then losing by pin in 2:38 to Andre Townsend of Shelbyville in the seventh-place match.

Prior to Saturday, the Spartans wrestled Oakwood/Salt Fork in a dual match on Dec. 7 in Catlin, with Oakwood/Salt Fork winning 67-6. SJO dropped to 0-3 in dual matches.

SJO suffered forfeit losses in seven matches, with the Comets winning five of the six contested matches. Jones picked up the lone win for the Spartans with a pin in 38 seconds at 220.

SJO is set to get back to the mat at 5 p.m. on Tuesday in a dual match at Warrensburg-Latham before taking part in the Unity Invitational that starts at 8 a.m. this Saturday in Tolono.