Joe Furr paced in circles Friday night.

The Lithia Springs 152-pound wrestler was ready to get it on with Daniel Williams of Wheeler on Mat No. 2, but coaches from Dunwoody and Forsyth Central, haggling over the match that had just ended, caused a delay.

And with each orbit of the mat, Furr grew increasingly impatient. He’d taken his warmups off, then put them back on when it seemed the dispute would never end.

Finally, a resolution was reached and Furr channeled his fury into a pinning of Williams. That gave Lithia Springs four wrestlers in today’s semifinal round of the Lions Den varsity tournament.

“It was kind of making me mad,” Furr said. “Once you get in a zone, you want to get it over with.”

Furr joined Jake Swinson, Ben Ford and Jason Morrison as semifinalists. As the consolation round began — with no Lithia Springs wrestlers forced to participate by having lost earlier — the Lions found themselves in eighth place overall.

It was a numbers game and only because Lithia Springs brought only four wrestlers into the competition — a full complement is 14, one for each weight class — the Lions didn’t have much chance to prevail in the overall standings.

Nevertheless, the Lithia Springs four held their own against teams bringing more wrestlers. Forsyth Central led with 62.5 points, followed by West Hall at 59.5, Wheeler and Westlake (each at 54), Riverwood with 48, Dunwoody with 44 and Cherokee with 39.5. Lithia Springs had 36.

“All our varsity wrestlers are pretty good,” Swinson said.

“We have four varsity guys and we boost each other up,” Ford said.

Swinson was the only Lithia Springs wrestler to compete twice; the others got first-round byes. Swinson pinned Rob Dore of Riverwood and Ricardo Mancilla of West Hall at 160.

Ford pinned Newnan’s Robey Spencer at 145 and Jason Morrison survived allowing four points in the final minute and held on for a 7-6 win over Taylor Strickland of Johns Creek at 135.

Douglas County brought its less experienced varsity to the Lions Den with a chance to make up some ground in the wrestlebacks. The Tigers were 12th with 24 points entering that round.

“It’s a good group of guys with no experience whatsoever,” said Douglas County coach Jeremy Fountain, who was impressed with the efforts of heavyweight Kenny Caldwell and 103-pound James Kelso. “If they do two or three things right, that’s great. You can’t crucify them for not knowing. But every time I turn around, they’re doing a little bit better. They’re just learning how to wrestle. In three years, the same things won’t make me near as happy.”