JACKSONVILLE – Orange Park High’s wrestlers got four titles en route to a team title at the Optimist Invitational hosted by Terry Parker High School in Jacksonville on Fri., Dec. 7 and Sat., Dec. 8.

The win springboards off a dual match loss to Class 1A runnerup Clay High on Wednesday as the season opens for area wrestlers.

“We love wrestling Clay early in the season because they are always technically sound and challenge us on that end,” said Orange Park coach Justin Daniels. “I talked to my guys about third period wrestling which is where Clay’s technical discipline will catch us.”

Clay defeated Orange Park 44-22.

Clay traveled to Santa Rosa Beach for the Border Wars Invite and finished 11th of 20 teams from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Stanish, unbeaten in pool rounds (5-0), finished third, Derrek Mosley (2-0 in pool) took fourth at 285 with Hoskinson (4-1 in pool), Justin Byler (1-2 in pool) and Grelli (1-2 in pool) all fifth.

At Parker, the Raiders led after day one and kept the lead with 186 points to stay ahead of 3A-Sandalwood at 132 and 2A-Chiles at 129. Robert E. Lee and Mandarin, both in district 1-3A, were fifth and ninth, respectively.

“Terry Parker is a great tournament early in the season for our young guys to get a taste of those long days,” said Daniels.

Orange Park got individual titles from region 1-2A qualifiers Davon Bailey at 113, Dean Ganci at 132, Cameron Broughton at 138 and Jacob Campbell at 170.

“It’s early and we have a small group committed to really pushing themselves this year,” said Daniels. “They are picking up on a lot of the technical things we are teaching. Looking two months ahead, we are going to look totally different that we do now.”

At 145, Diego Soto lost in the semifinal to Sandalwood’s Lavaugh Brown, who was third in district 1-3A last year. Brown won the Optimist title.

Vinnie Walker took fourth at 152 with region qualifier Jacob Moore losing in the 182 final to Terry Parker’s Landon Dains with a 17-1 tech fall. Dains was district and region 1-2A runnerup last year at 170 to Lincoln state third placer Justin Grant. Dains lost in the 2A consolation semifinal.

Region qualifier Justin Garcia finished fourth at 285 losing to tournament champion Darius Stanley of St. Augustine, third in region 1-2A last year with an 0-2 at state.

Against Clay, Orange Park’s Arlo Wilson took out Clay’s Tazz Hampton to open the match with a 13-3 win. Hampton is a Middleburg High transfer and 2A state qualifier.

Broughton lost a rough match with Clay’s state qualifier Cale Hoskinson 14-9 in a match that had plenty of acrobatics.

At 145, Clay’s Grant Stanish won impressively 17-0 over Vinnie Walker.

At 170, Campbell piled up a 13-4 lead before pinning Luca Finnaca in the third period.

For Clay, big boys Joseph Grelli and Jordan Bell both pinned at 220 and 285.

Jacob Moore got a quick pin over Wilguens Dorvilus at 182 with an underhook throw with a minute left in the first period.