HOWARD — For the East Knox Bulldogs wrestling squad, it was a dress rehearsal for the postseason.
The host Bulldogs faced off with the Highland Scots, along with Garaway, Indian Valley, Granville and Madison Plains, in the 2009 East Knox Dual tournament.
The Bulldogs won four of the five duals, losing only to Indian Valley, 54-28. Indian Valley won all five of its duals.
“Everything went pretty well,” said Bulldogs wrestling coach Keith Kaufmann. “Coming in, I knew that Indian Valley had a pretty strong team, and they’re pretty solid from top to bottom. We lost a couple of matches that I didn’t think we would, but that’s the way it goes.”
East Knox got the better of the head-to-head matchup of local teams, defeating the Scots, 69-12. Despite the loss, the Scots managed to pull off a heavyweight surprise. Highland’s big man Chris Shell pinned East Knox’s Andy Van Winkle in an upset.
“I felt sorry for [Highland] because they had some injuries and some kids sick,” said Kaufmann. “They weren’t able to field a full team so it’s hard to look at them head-to-head because there just weren’t that many matches.”
“We had a couple of guys healing up with minor injuries and a couple of guys who were sick,” said Highland coach Adam Gilmore. “We just went there without everybody, but the guys that we went there with did pretty good. We wrestled East Knox hard, but we came out on the wrong end. It’s just a matter of fixing a few things, and we will see them again in the district tournament.”
The Bulldogs were hoping for a win against Indian Valley and Garaway, and did defeat Garaway, 46-21.
“The reason that we brought Indian Valley and Garaway into the meet was that they are going to be in our sectional,” said Kaufmann. “This gave us a chance to see them before we went to the sectionals. If we beat them, we would be seeded higher than them. Unfortunately, we took some matches that went in reverse, so our kids have to understand that.”
Despite the loss to Indian Valley, Kaufmann was still able to get a good look at what his boys will be up against in the sectionals.
“We didn’t wrestle anyone in a different weight class, so whoever they paired up with, we’ll see in the sectionals,” said Kaufmann. “We know how they wrestle and we can work on those things, so it was good to get a preview.”
Everyone knew Granville would be a tough team to push around the mats, but Kaufmann was happy with the Bulldogs’ efforts in their 42-37 defeat of Granville.
“I thought that we hung with Granville pretty well,” said Kaufmann. “That’s a respected program and they have a good group of kids. I thought the best match in that dual was [East Knox’s] Cory Douglas against [Jesse] Cohen, who is a hard wrestler, but Cory took him to the wire. Cohen is normally their 125-pounder and they bumped him up to 130, but Cory wrestled a very good match against him. I was also very pleased with [East Knox’s] Trent Simmons at 135. He had four wins and a forfeit. That’s the same way with Mark McNichols at 140.”
Madison Plains, in worse shape than Highland, limped into the tournament with more than its share of sickness and injuries.
Highland managed a pleasant surprise in that matchup from their lightweight.
“Our 103-pounder [Luke Clemens] beat the kid from Madision Plains [Dominic Evans] who had beaten Logan pretty handily earlier in the season,” said Gilmore.
The Scots, who are hoping to get their missing wrestlers back next week, had some good matchups.
“Mike Shepard finished the day 5-0, Jordan Ammons 4-1, Bo Allman, Luke Clemens, and Chris Shell finished 3-2,” said Gilmore. “We were pretty banged up coming into today, which doesn’t make you very competitive in a dual team tournament. However, the guys we brought competed very hard. We are seeing improvement in all of our guys. We just need to make sure we are healthy for our league tournament next Saturday at River Valley.”
Kaufmann is just thankful that his boys, who had been a bit banged up, are ready to go for sectional week.
“Well, healthwise, we are in pretty good shape,” said Kaufmann. ”It looks very promising going into league tournament. We’ll get a test in a few weight classes there, and then go on to the sectionals. It’s a matter of trying to peak at the right time — that’s what we’re looking at.”
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MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon’s jayvee wrestling squad fell short of a sweep, losing to Hilliard Darby, 33-30, after downing Newark Catholic, 58-6, and Groveport-Madison, 66-18. Darby also defeated Newark Catholic, 63-12 and Groveport-Madison, 72-12.
”We have Hilliard Darby’s varsity squad coming into our house next Friday, so it was good to get their jayvee in there,” said Mount Vernon Middle School coach Alan Oswalt. ”I thought it was a good, hard match. It was a great battle. When we lost, we lost big matches and we gave up a lot of pins, but I felt like we wrestled better than them. We just gave up those big matches.”
Despite the disappointing loss to Darby, Oswalt found much with which to be pleased.
“I was impressed with my starting jayvee guys, but I was also impressed with some of my first-year guys, who stood out better than what I thought they have all year,” he said. “Teddy Hagans wrestled a great match and looked good today. Alex Gamble (135) wrestled a really good one for us, [defeating Darby’s Caleb Burley.] Those were some of the guys that were struggling, but looked good tonight.
“Colin Riley, one of my better kids at 125, looked real good today. As a team, everybody looked real good. Some people wrestled some better kids that made it real tough. It was only when we got into our upper weight classes that we started giving up big matches and pins. It makes it hard to come back.”
Don’t be fooled. This Yellow Jacket jayvee team is varsity tough.
“We wrestle a tough, tough jayvee schedule, and we wrestle a lot of varsity tournaments and see a lot of varsity action,” said Oswalt. “That makes it nice for the next year, when they come in and they have seen that [experience.] Some of the outstanding eighth-grade wrestlers will go to the varsity, but the majority of them will go to jayvee. Maybe a couple of this year’s eighth-graders will be with the varsity group, but the majority will be with me.”
