Tallassee is headed back to Birmingham.
The Tallassee wrestling team beat Elberta, 64-12, in the AHSAA Class 5A duals quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon. The Tigers, now 30-0, advance to play in the 5A semifinals held at the Birmingham Crossplex.
Tallassee will wrestle Gulf Shores on Friday morning at 8:45 a.m. for a chance to play in the state championship.
“We’re excited to be in the Final Four,” Tallassee coach John Mask said. “This was the kids’ goal all along. We’re going to face some really tough teams up there so we have to lock in next week and want it more. The kids are excited. They’ve wanted to make it back up there all year.”
Tallassee, which is the No. 2-ranked team in Class 5A entering the playoffs, was the clear favorite over Elberta entering the match and the Tigers showed exactly why that was.
A year after beating this same Elberta team in the quarterfinals, 57-11, Tallassee turned in an even more impressive win.
Thursday’s match started at the 195-pound class and Nolan Addeo started the blowout off with a bang. After taking a comfortable 10-0 lead following near falls in both of the first two periods, he was finally able to pin his opponent at the 5:44 mark.
Jude Rogers in the 215 class followed and pulled out a 7-4 decision to put Tallassee up, 9-0.
The heavyweight match didn’t go Tallassee’s way, but the Tigers kept the train rolling as the top of the lineup got on the mats.
Thomas Patterson, the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the 106 class, earned a pin at 3:05.
(reporting by Dalton Middleton, The Tallassee Tribune)