Shepard headed home; others alive
COLUMBUS — Highland freshman Mike Shepard emerged from the darkness of the bullpen on to the mats. He looked around to find himself standing in front of a crowd of at least 10,000 and Ohio’s wrestling elite. Welcome to the State Wrestling Championships inside Value City Arena — plenty for a first-timer, especially a freshman, to take in.
“He was anxious. I don’t think scared, but you know first trip here and everything is new. It can be overwhelming for someone as young as he is,” said Highland wrestling coach Terry Wooff.
Shepard felt nervous, and a sense of awe in his new surroundings.
“My knees got real wobbly,” he said.
During the Division III 119 preliminaries, Shepard was pinned by Massillon Tuslaw’s Jase Hall at 2:37.
“He (Hall) is a good wrestler, if you are going to lose to somebody while you are here he might as well be that good,” said Wooff. “He capitalized on every bad position he (Shepard) put himself in to. He forced it, and we would react to it.”
The loss placed Shepard in the consolation bracket pairing him against the only other freshman to qualify at 119. Payton Oney of Greenwich South Central, who dropped a 7-3 overtime decision to Bluffton’s Zach Domer.
“He’ll do much better his next match. Not because of his opponent, but because we told him first match win or lose you will be a veteran at the state. You have to get that first match in,” said Wooff after Shepard’s loss to Hall.
Unfortunately for Shepard, the same was true for Oney, who grabbed a 6-0 decision during the freshman face-off. Compared to his first match against Hall, Shepard felt more comfortable wrestling someone who had limited state experience like himself.
“I was more confident,” said Shepard.
Highland’s first ever freshman to qualify for state knows if he wants to keep writing Scots’ history, he has to work had this offseason. Shepard’s goal is to place at state next season.
“I think it was a good experience, and I’ll be more prepared for this next year,” said Shepard.
Just warming upMount Vernon senior Michael Lybarger picked up a big Division I 140-pound weight class preliminary win against Marc Bryan of St. Ignatius, scoring a 17-3 decision. Lybarger can now stop and breathe a sigh of relief that the worst is over.
“My first match, it was good to get it out of the way. You always feel a little tired and stuff. I’m glad it was a big win, 17-3, almost a tech fall, but I am just glad to get it out of the way. The first match is always the toughest,” said Lybarger.
Lybarger was scheduled to wrestle Zack Goins of Elyria this morning in the quarterfinals. Goins beat Dominic Gorrasi of Cincinnati Elder, 29-10, in the first round.
“Once you get that first win out of the way you really feel like you are in the tournament. You’ve got all the anticipation of coming down here, and you just want to get out there and get the first win out of the way and focus on the tournament,” said Mount Vernon head coach John Brown.
The Yellow Jacket is set on winning out the rest of his matches this weekend. Brown feels it’s possible, as long as Lybarger doesn’t forget the hard work it took to get here.
“I think he has to do the same he has done all season,” said Brown. “It’s like I told him before we went out there, ‘Forget where you are at, and go out and do what you were trained to do.’”
Veteran squeaks by
Loudonville’s Ryan Thatcher won his first match on Thursday afternoon against Daniel Foley of Worthington Christian in the Division III preliminaries of the 152-pound weight class. Thatcher won with a 9-6 decision, and is hoping for a better performance in the quarterfinals today.
“I don’t think he was pleased with his performance. The difference between that match and the last two years down here is he came back and finished the match and won the match in the last 20 to 25 seconds instead of shutting down and not trying to win the match,” said Loudonville head coach Steve Furlong. “Last year, he would have tried not to lose the match. This year, he went out and tried to win the match. That was the big difference there.”
The Redbird will take on Mason True of Arcadia today in the quarterfinals. True, an alternate, grabbed a preliminary win over Blanchester’s Jeff Panno, 7-4.
“We are going to get into that quarterfinals match and see what happens there and take it one match at a time,” said Furlong.
Pushing forward
Clear Fork’s Dalton Britt has developed a certain flair for improvement. The heavyweight has continued to make progress the second half of the season, growing stronger every match of every meet he goes to.
“I think he wrestles better every time he gets on the mat. He has been doing that for about the past two weeks,” said Clear Fork wrestling coach Brian Faust.
Thursday afternoon, he dropped a close 5-4 decision to John Hiles of DeSales in the Division II 285-pound weight class preliminaries.
“I don’t like to lose. I didn’t want him to lose by any means, but he did a whole lot better in person than it shows he did on paper,” said Faust.
The preliminary loss didn’t stop Britt, who brushed off his match and regained his composure for what lied ahead.
“I just have to focus and keep my head up and just wrestle more aggressive next time,” said Britt.
During his consolation match, Britt pinned Thomas Taylor of Lewistown Indian Lake for the win.
“He’ll make a mistake one match, and by the next match, he is already working on fixing it,” said Faust.
Britt has no room to make the big mistakes now, one loss in today’s competition, and his season is over.
“He is still in good shape here. He has a good gauge of where he is at right now and he could go against anybody toe-to-toe in this tournament and compete, “said Faust. “He is the real deal.”
Britt will wrestle this afternoon in Round 2 of the consolation bracket against an opponent that was to be determined this morning.
