Pope Wrestling Repeats as State Champs

The wrestling season isn't over yet for the Pope High School Greyhounds.

There's still the Cobb County Championships coming up next week, as well as the state traditional wrestling meet.

But Pope's dominance is beyond question after Saturday's 50-14 rout over Woodland of Bartow in the Class AAAAA duals finals in Macon.

The Greyhounds, who are now 32-3 and remain the only Georgia school in the national prep rankings, took to the mats without their star, Brooks Climmons, who was away due to a death in the family.

Pope overcame a slow start to win 11 matches, dropping only three. Coach Jim Haskin, in his 18th season, now has four state titles to his credit, including state traditional titles in 2011 and 2012. He tells Score Atlanta how the program's success came about:

“When I got here, I cleaned house and started from the bottom. We built a solid junior program and then started recruiting in the halls (of Pope High School). We’d pick out kids in the hall that looked like they wanted to be winners, champions. It’s hard to tell (if they’ll wrestle), but you can always ask.”

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