Sunday, January 24, 1999

TC third in NOL Duals

By Ed Fox
Sports Writer

WILLARD - Columbian and Upper Sandusky had a lot in common at the first-ever Northern Ohio League Duals at Willard High School Saturday.

Each team finished on a positive note at the two-day event and each lost two close matches which kept them from finishing higher in the event which counts half toward determining the league champion.

The league tournament, which will be held next month at Upper Sandusky, will also account for half of the points in the title chase. A team receives one point for each dual win. At the tournament, a team will receive a point for each team it finishes ahead of in the final standings.

Bellevue is well on its way to an eighth straight league championship after fashioning a perfect 7-0 slate in the duals. Willard finished second with a 5-2 mark while Columbian and Shelby tied for third at 4-3, Upper Sandusky and Galion tied for fifth with 3-4 marks, Bucyrus was seventh at 2-5 and Norwalk trailed the eight-team field with an 0-7 mark.

Columbian senior Brian Bloomfield reached the century mark in wins on his next-to-last bout of the event, a pin over Bellevue's Geoff Middleswarth. Bloomfield, who has settled in at 125 pounds, is now 18-6 this season and 101-29 for his career.

''A highlight of my career was the first time I made the state tournament,'' said Bloomfield. ''I've been to state twice and would like to go a third time and place this time. I've been within a match of placing before and it would be nice to close out my career with a high finish.

Bloomfield was one of six Columbian wrestlers to only taste defeat once during the duals. His loss came Friday on his first venture, a 17-9 defeat to Willard senior Sam Ames who was undefeated at 7-0 and 20-4 overall.

''My weight class was really tough. I'm looking forward to meeting him (Ames) again at the NOL tournament. He caught me in the beginning of the match with a head and arm and that didn't help as I fell behind 5-0. I wish I could've went undefeated,'' said Bloomfield.

After going 2-1 on Friday, the Tornadoes came back with a 2-2 showing on Saturday.

The only lopsided loss by the Tornadoes came against Bellevue, 57-12, with the other defeats coming by a combined total of five points. They lost to Willard, 39-36, Friday and to Galion, 38-36. Columbian defeated Upper Sandusky (39-36), Bucyrus (42-34), Norwalk (59-20) and Shelby (47-30).

In addition to Bloomfield, other Tornadoes with 6-1 marks were Chris Lee (135), Maxum Tomaszewski (145), Mike Eisenhower (152) and Joe Ranker (189). Brad Mesnard (130) went 5-1 while Allan Weickert (215 and 275) went 5-2 and both Kris Adam (119) and Justin Lynch (160) closed at 4-3.

''I am extremely proud of these kids,'' said Columbian mentor John Tomaszewski. ''We did as well as we possibly could. The matches we lost, with the exception of the Bellevue match, were very close. With a win here or there, we could've come out of here at 6-1.

''We had to forfeit the first two matches against every team and the kids were battling uphill from the start. Most of the kids that we had with one loss suffered that defeat in the Bellevue match and it was a case that our good kids met their good kids. Their good kids are more physical than ours and that's something we had to address in the offseason. They (Bellevue) have a nice team from top to bottom.

''I thought we could finish 4-3 or 5-2. I knew Galion had some goodwrestlers and Shelby had good depth from top to bottom. The team which surprised me was Willard. Their depth is as good as anyone. It was funny because Galion beats us by two points, Shelby beats Galion and we come back and beat Shelby so a lot of it dealt with how you pair up.

''Pins also had a lot to do with it and we were able to get the pin,'' said Tomaszewski.

The Tornadoes were able to come up with 34 pins while the opponents had just 19.

Like Friday, Upper Sandusky closed out Saturday on a winning note. The Rams handed Willard a 45-36 loss. It was only the second loss of the duals for the Crimson Flashes.

The Rams went 1-2 on Friday with a 57-22 win over Norwalk along with a 39-36 loss to Columbian and 55-21 loss to Bellevue. On Saturday, the Rams lost to Galion (50-30) and Shelby (42-36) before winning over Bucyrus (45-33) and Willard.

Darrin Rowland (103) went 5-1 to lead the Rams while David Doty was 4-1. Jacob Vaughn (140), Keith Montgomery (171) and Jacob Wilch (189) were each 5-2 while Ed Call (135) and Curtis Eldridge (275) went 4-2 and Joe Kennedy (160) went 4-3.

''We were only two calls or moves from being 5-2 instead of 3-4,'' said Upper Sandusky head coach Dick DeWitt. ''The kids wrestled hard, we're just so young and we made some young mistakes. We're pretty happy with the finish. This whole day we were really in it with everybody we wrestled, it went down to the last match or two each time.

''Our 215 guy (Doty) got hurt earlier and we had guys step up not only at 215, but at other weights too. Luke Latham and Paul Lehman each stepped in at the heavier weights and got big wins for us. Latham got us a key win against Willard. He's a strong kid and we knew the Willard kid depended a lot of his strength and we knew it would be a strength match and Luke got in there and didn't make a mistake and ended up pinning the kid to clinch the win for us.

''During the Christmas break and for over a month, we had no matches and it was good for the kids to get a lot of matches in this weekend. Because we're so young with five freshmen in the lineup and several other sophomores, it's important for them to get some matches in.

''One thing we do have is depth and we had a lot of kids step in and contribute with a win here or there. The kids gave us all they had, especially up top. We're headed in the right direction, all they need is to get some experience,'' said DeWitt.

There were 11 wrestlers with perfect 7-0 records including five from Bellevue including state qualifiers Matt DePolo (135), Anthony Coleman (140) and Corey Smith (152) along with Tony Fisher (145) and Luke Didion (189).

Shelby had Chad Adkins (119) and Israel Martin (275) go 7-0 and Sam Shumaker (103) went 6-0. Norwalk's Tom DeLuca went 7-0 at 160 which included a 5-3 overtime win over Galion's Adam Gilmore in a battle of state qualifiers. Galion's Ryan Heiber (24-0 overall), also a state qualifier, was 7-0 at 171 while Todd Bloomfield remained unbeaten (25-0) at 215 and Ames was 7-0 at 125.

Noah Blankenship of Bucyrus was knocked from the unbeaten ranks in his final bout, losing to Bellevue's Aaron Garman, 6-5. Blankenship was a state qualifier and is 16-1 for the year.