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LEHIGH ACRES — Nothing has changed in three years with the Palmetto Ridge wrestling team, unless you count adding to a rapidly growing legacy.

Every wrestler on the team dyes their hair platinum blonde and for the third time in as many years, the team has won its district tile. Just like in the blueprint Mark Rosenbalm and his team have been following since day one, when the Bears get to winning, it isn’t usually close.

Palmetto climbed one step closer to a second consecutive state title at East Lee County High School, with a team score of 310 points at the 2A-12 District meet. Fort Myers finished second with a distant 167. Eleven Palmetto wrestlers finished with district championships and nobody on the team finished lower than third place.

Regionals will be held at Palmetto Ridge beginning on Friday.

“They have been dying their hair since freshmen year, I don’t know who’s idea it was, but if they think it makes them better than I am all for it,” Rosenbalm said. “We all have things to work on, we have to fine-tune some things we did today. I’m happy with our performance, but to take it to that next level we have to continue to work hard.”

The Bears’ Cory Singletary, T.G. Gayer and Richie Dehnz all pinned their finals opponents in the first round. Blaine Ison and Zack Mastro each won their championships with technical falls.

For as well as Palmetto did across the board, the heavyweight final between Barron’s T.J. Avery and the Bears’ Caleb Rainwaters proved to be one of the most intense matches of the afternoon. Avery outlasted Rainwaters for a

2-1 decision.

Halfway through the first round, Avery looked to have the upper-hand, but had no points to show for it. After two rounds, however, Avery’s strength and explosiveness was too overpowering for Rainwaters to try anything technical.

Palmetto’s heavyweight made one last try at points by going for an escape at the start of the third round, but that didn’t go so well, as Avery held on and eventually came up with another point. Avery held on for the win.

“Everyone is kind of scared of (Palmetto Ridge) like they can’t be beat, but everyone is beatable,” Avery said. “I haven’t changed the way I wrestle for anyone, and I wasn’t going to start with him.”

Avery’s championship was the lone bright spot on the day for Barron; he was the Cougars’ only first place finisher. Ben Carter, who returned to the team this season after sitting out last year following his state-title freshman season, was dismissed from the team again on Thursday after an injury-plagued comeback attempt.

Carter wasn’t the only highly-touted Cougar absent. Mitch MacClugage missed the meet with a torn labrum, and Joey Kessler had to sit out for disciplinary reasons. Both have been state qualifiers for Barron.

For a side loaded with replacement players, The Cougars still managed four third-place finishes in addition to Avery’s win. The team finished fifth overall.

“You have to look at the positives, and that is that we have a lot of young guys coming back next year, and that we have a lot of young guys moving on to regionals,” Barron coach Jeff Mustari said. “It was a learning experience for a young team but we’re going to have a hard week of practice and take things as far as we can.”

Lely and Gulf Coast will be traveling their fair share of wrestlers on to regionals as well after taking third and fourth, respectively.

The Trojans edged out the Sharks by just seven points, but Gulf Coast had two of its wrestlers win championships.

Alex Cushman pinned two of his first three opponents before gutting out a 4-0 decision over Palmetto’s Brad Saxton in the 130-pound class. Charles Fox was Gulf Coast’s other champion, as he was able to win a two-man battle of attrition with Lely’s Louga Isme, ending with a 6-1 decision.

Both teams each saw a number of their wrestlers move on, as Lely placed nine and Gulf Coast advanced seven. Lely coach Tige Thompson was satisfied, but expects a little more out the nine wrestlers continuing on next week than what he saw at the district meet.

“Some out finals didn’t turn out the way that we were hoping, but we didn’t wrestle to our standard and the guys know it,” Thompson said. “We had three brand new matches against Palmetto guys this week, but we’ll have to put our hat on next week and work hard.”

Class 2A-District 12 tournament

at East Lee County

Team Scores

1. Palmetto Ridge 310, 2. Fort Myers 167, 3. Lely 125, 4. Gulf Coast 118.5, 5. Barron Collier 101.00, 6. Cypress Lake 55, 7. Lehigh 29, 8. East Lee County 9

Finals results

103: Cody Singletary (PR) pins Hilo Watanabe (FM) 1:44; 112: T.G. Gayer (PR) pins Andrew Adams (FM) :45; 119: Blaine Ison (PR) t-fall Dylan Parrish (GC) 18-3; 125: Elias Rey (PR) maj-dec. David Roberts (FM) 9-0; 130: Alex Cushman (GC) dec. Brad Saxton (PR) 4-0; 135: Anthony Phillips (PR) maj-dec. Quinton Antoine (L) 15-6; 140: Jordan Thompson (PR) maj-dec. David Isme (Lel) 19-6; 145: Richie Dehnz (PR) pins Brandon Cortez (Leh) :31; 152: Zack Mastro (PR) t-fall Adam Rosemond (CL) 19-4; 160: Clynt Hadley maj-dec. Justin Crimmins (FM) 16-8; 171: Troy Miller (PR) maj-dec. Michael Rippy (FM) 14-5; 189: Charles Fox (GC) dec. Louga Isme (Lel) 6-1; 215: Dylan Gamret (PR) pins Louis Gonzalez (Lel) 4:42; 285: T.J. Avery (BC) dec. Caleb Rainwaters (PR) 2-1