By MATMEN, Wednesday, 5 p.m.
2A-District 2 IBT
When & where: Thursday at Lincoln, 12:30 p.m. (weighin), 2:30 p.m. (wrestle).
Teams in the field: In addition to the host Trojans, Arnold, Chiles, Columbia, Gainesville, Leon and Mosley will be in the field.
At stake: Top four wrestlers in each of 14 weight classes will automatically advance to the 2A-Region 1 tournament at Chiles on February 24-25. Additional fifth- and sixth-place wrestlers at each weight may be selected to advance as additional region qualifiers to fill out the region bracket. Those wrestlers are selected via an FHSAA schematic.
Defending team champion: None; last year’s team champion, Fleming Island, is now in 2A-District 4.
Returning individual champions: Garrett Marschka (Chiles); Zaire Fernanders-Jackson (Lincoln, won in 2021).
Synopsis: As mentioned in Tuesday’s 2A-District 4 preview, having Fleming Island in this district last year created a power vacuum in terms of this year’s individual competitors, as only two wrestlers in the district have ever won a district championship and only one of those district champions have also been on a team champion. That said, we certainly are projecting Lincoln and Chiles to go 1-2, but who will finish third and fourth? Right now, it’s most likely to be Arnold and Mosley, but it’s unclear which team might come out on top there. I’m inclined to go with the Dolphins third and then Arnold fourth, but it’s a pretty big gap between those two teams and the Lincoln/Chiles group up top.
State-ranked wrestlers (listed by weight class in ranked order) —
106: Joe Tucker (Lincoln, 10th).
113: Vaniel Caceres (Lincoln, 12th).
120: Jashawn Washington (Lincoln, 14th); Sam Tolomeo (Chiles, 20th).
138: Garrett Marschka (Chiles, 4th).
152: Connor Edwards (Lincoln, 4th).
195: Jakob Nowak (Lincoln, 3rd); Dillon Elliott (Chiles, 5th).
285: Ryder Luck (Lincoln, 19th).
All rankings from https://www.kabrawrestling.com/rankings/class-2a
North Florida Matmen 