Pelham and Oak Mountain high schools won’t have to send their wrestlers far to compete for championships in this weekend’s state wrestling meet.

The Pelham Civic Complex will host four Panthers and 10 Eagles for the AHSAA wrestling tournament on Friday and Saturday.

Wrestlers from the two teams qualified for the meet by placing in the top four in their respective weight divisions at last weekend’s section tournament in Prattville.

Oak Mountain finished third in team scoring at the meet with 159 points.

Spain Park claimed first place with 175.5 points with Hoover finishing second with 172.5.

Pelham finished sixth of 12 teams with 89.5 points.

The Panthers’ Tyler Burger (42-4) finished second in the 125-pound weight class after being pinned by Hoover’s Tyler Osborn (26-1).

In the 140-pound class, J.R. Long (44-6) of Oak Mountain defeated Prattville’s Derek Carmichael (40-7) 4-2.

Brandon Lambert (46-6) beat Prattville’s Matt Lunsford (38-8) 4-0 in the 152-pound class.

Pelham’s Ben Johnson finished third after losing by one point in the semi-finals. Johnson came back to defeat Oak Mountain’s Kyle Stevenson in the consolation finals.

Sophomore Kevin Hendrick and senior Jason Troutman each finished fourth for the Panthers and also qualified for the state meet.

&uot;I am very disapointed for my seniors who did not qualify for state,&uot; said Pelham wrestling coach Bob Parker. &uot;They have worked so hard and provided great leadership.&uot;

Parker said seniors Troutman, Johnson, Tyler Knox, Cody Brownong and Adam Moore will be &uot;hard to replace.&uot;

&uot;But the good news is we started six freshmen most of the season,&uot; Parker said.

Also qualifying for the state meet from Oak Mountain were Matthew Vinyard, Andrew Bell, Corey McCallum, Dennis Hillman, Craig Phillips, Mitch Ray and Ryan Pugh.

The meet will begin with weigh-in for all participants at 10 a.m. Friday.

Opening ceremonies will be held at 12:15 p.m. with the first round (preliminaries) at 1 p.m. and the second round (consolation preliminaries) at 5:30 p.m.

The championship semi-finals will start at 7 p.m. Friday night.

Saturday’s weigh-in begins at 8 a.m. with the third round (consolation semi-finals) at 9 a.m. and the consolation finals at 11 a.m.

The fourth round will start at 2:30 p.m. with the introduction of the finalists followed by the finals at 3 p.m.

Admission is $6 for rounds one, two and three and $7 for round four (finals)