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Young Eagles To Lead

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By ADAM ADKINS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 14, 2007

BRANDON - They're the big men on a team of big men, but Eric Grajales and Joey Cozart seem to have vaulted into those positions a little prematurely.

The Brandon wrestling standouts find themselves in new positions this season as leaders of one of the nation's most storied programs. Grajales and Cozart both fit the mold with similar credentials of previous Eagles leaders, except for one glaring discrepancy: They're both underclassmen.

"It's different," Grajales said with a laugh. "The last few years we had some big seniors. My freshman year, David Craig was amazing. Last year, Tom Timothy, Sean Joyce, Keith Koziel, all of them were here. It's definitely different."

It's probably the first time in a long time Brandon's wrestling team doesn't have that dominating senior presence, but make no mistake about it: Grajales, a junior, and Cozart, a sophomore, are more than capable of filling the void.

They're each proven winners. Grajales is a two-time state champion and undefeated the past two seasons; Cozart won his first state title last season with a 46-2 mark. They've each sat back and absorbed from the previous leaders what it takes to do the job. And now, they're each ready to take on the role as captains of a premier program.

"Now I'm on the top of the scale, and now I just got to make sure I do what I can to make sure the other kids do as good as possible," Grajales said.

"They the previous captains knew how to work and they knew how to lead us, and we'll try to go from what they did last year," Cozart added. "A lot of people look at us as leaders, but other people have got to step it up, too. We want everybody to be captains of our team."

Some believe Brandon may need captain-like performances across the board to maintain its national-record 439 dual-match win streak and its state-record streak of seven consecutive state championships alive.

"We're not as strong at face value as maybe the last six years and we're a young team," longtime Eagles coach Russ Cozart said, "but we've got some good guys, some hard workers."

And they've got a lot of guys who are used to winning.

Including Grajales and Cozart, Brandon returns seven state qualifiers from last season, with three of them - juniors Kevin Timothy and Zaq Berridge and senior Phil Uno - placing in the top four at the state tournament. Also, sophomore Terry Dawson, who qualified for state but suffered a broken kneecap while jogging on the eve of the tournament, is back and performing well, the coach said.

All those pieces, and the fact Brandon continues to put in the work, have the Eagles believing they won't miss a beat.

"We've got a young team this year, and every year we've got a young team people say they're going to beat us, but every year we keep winning because people keep underestimating us," Joey Cozart said. "They just don't think we're on that level. But how hard we work, they get amazed every time we wrestle them."

Reporter Adam Adkins can be reached at (813) 657-4533 or aadkins@tampatrib.com.

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