The Mt. Zion High School wrestling team got off to a good start in its 6th Annual Screamin’ Eagle Tournament on Friday night, beating Cedartown 47-36 and Coosa 54-24.

“We did OK,” MZ coach Michael Cleek said. “We wrestled some teams that we matched up well with.”

But the hosts weren’t the only ones on a roll in the dual portion of the two-day event. Fellow Area 1-A rival and Class A No. 1 Bremen’s first team had a strong showing, defeating Lithia Springs, 73-6, and a tough Model team, 52-19, in the final dual match of the night.

“Obviously, Bremen looks extremely strong,” Cleek said. “And they’re probably the class of the tournament right now just from what I’ve seen.”

Though it was an improvement from his team’s most recent competition, Bremen coach Tony Armas said his Blue Devils still have plenty of work to do.

“We looked better than we did last week,” Armas said. “We’ve got still a long way to go if we’re thinking about doing anything later this year.”

Armas said Friday’s dual matches helped set the brackets for today’s action, something he’s hoping will help his guys steer clear of some of the Model wrestlers early on.

“All (Friday) did was put us in the bracket for (Saturday),” Armas said. “So at least will be away hopefully from a lot of these Model kids.”

Bremen’s second team lost a match to Model’s second team.

Temple struggled in a loss to Bremen’s second team, but the Tigers fared pretty well in the matches in which they had guys wrestle against Model’s second team, losing 48-24 after starting down 36 points because of not being able to fill certain weight classes.  Temple coach Chase Wilbanks said he wished he had made a more toned-down schedule for his team that features so many freshmen and sophomores.

“I feel like I should have scheduled more JV matches for our guys to get ’em better reps,” Wilbanks said. “We’re going up against varsities like Bremen ... they’re just tremendous squads.”

Overall, Cleek said the event hosted by his school was going well as the end of the first day neared.

“Had a good turnout, good competition, real proud of how it’s running. Real smooth tournament so far,” Cleek said.