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After clinching the Blount County wrestling championship for Maryville on Saturday, Tyler Wilson had his little brother to thank.

The Rebels' junior used a takedown move learned recently at his brother Nathan's middle-school practice to pin William Blount's Josh Connaster and deliver a 12-point win for Maryville in the final of the Blount County duals at the Governors' Marvin L. Boring Gymnasium.

"Once I get him down on the mat, I feel like I'm in control," Wilson said. "I'm not real good on my feet. I like wrestling on the mat a lot better."

Wilson proved that, pinning Connaster 93 seconds into the first round to give him a 15-5 record on the season. Two matches later, and Maryville had completed a 2-0 run through the round-robin tournament with a 48-36 victory.

Alcoa was eliminated earlier in the day with losses to both William Blount and the Rebels. Heritage did not send a team.

"Tyler went up to the middle-school practice the other night, and that was a takedown they were working on," Maryville coach Mark Humphrey said. "He liked it. That was good. (Middle school) coach (Bill) Steverson was responsible for that takedown."

Despite going just 3-6 in contested matches with the Govs, the Rebels were able to pull out the victory thanks to five forfeit wins. Humphrey said he hated to win that way as some of his best wrestlers were forced to sit out. William Blount simply didn't have the bodies to fill weight classes, with at least three injuries limiting its numbers.

"We lost by 12, and that's one match," first-year Governors coach Matt Talley said. "We've said it's hard to compete at the state level with our numbers. ... We've said we want to send six guys individually to the state, which would be a big deal."

William Blount was able to perform well individually, showcasing superior conditioning that allowed the Governors to win two matches against Alcoa that went all three rounds. Against the Rebels, WB's Jonathan Blake was able to recover after letting Gabe Meadows squirt out of a near-pin late in the third. Blake pinned Meadows with just 10.4 seconds left in the match.

"I was just trying to get him down, and I was just getting angrier and angrier because he wouldn't get pinned," Blake said. "I was thinking he was getting a little tired out."

It was a lack of conditioning that sunk Alcoa earlier in the day. After falling to Maryville, 60-24, the Tornadoes lost by a single point to the Governors, 37-36. While Alcoa was able to force matches deep into the third round, including two that went to decisions, the Tornadoes struggled to score points and often were stuck wrestling from behind. John Tucker Rankin's late pin of Connaster gave Alcoa a shot, but the rally from 37 points down came up just short.

"As a team, we felt like we could've beat them," Rankin said. "Part of that is conditioning. We looked a little tired at times."

While Talley and the Govs prided themselves on their conditioning, they proved no match in the clutch for a few critical takedown skills gleamed from a middle-school practice.

"(That move) is just a real good setup," Wilson said. "I started using it just a couple days ago. It was pretty quick."