Baylor's Brandon Brunner at the 2012 state wrestling tournament
Baylor School senior and three-time state wrestling champion Brandon Brunner has committed to wrestle for South Dakota State and will enroll in the fall of 2013.
Brunner won the 2010 state championship (103 lbs.) while wrestling for Tullahoma High School in D-I and has won two additional state championships for Baylor in D-II in 2011 (119) and 2012 (132).
South Dakota State head wrestling coach is Chris Bono who was the Chattanooga head coach for three years, 2007-09 (39-17 and three SoCon tournament titles) and one of the SD State assistant coaches is Israel Silva who was the Southern Conference 285-pound champion in 2006 for UTC.
“I have known coach Bono and coach Silva since I was in the fifth grade and they coached me in middle school when I attended the UTC Kids Club workouts for four years,” said Brunner who has a 3.4 grade point average.
“So when they recruited me to attend South Dakota State it was a pretty easy decision to make.”
Brunner has also trained the past two summers at a wrestling training center at Oregon State where Silva was one of the coaches.
Wrestling for Four State Titles: Brunner will go for his fourth state title in February and said that the toughest of his three state titles to win was the first one as a ninth grader at Tullahoma … “I was a small 103-pounder compared to some of my opponents who had dropped from 112 pounds so that was tough and I had to compete against some sophomores and juniors as well.”
Baylor Notes: D-II state champion Tate Robinson of Christian Brothers has transferred to Baylor and will be a junior for the 2012-13 school year … Robinson won the 112-pound title in 2010 as a freshman and was state runner-up to Baylor’s Zach Watson in 2012 at 126.
Contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net