December 31, 1998
St. Mary's nearly sweeps duals clean
SANDUSKY -- It was nearly a clean sweep for Sandusky St. Mary's at the Fourth Annual Northwest Ohio Division III District Duals at Jackson Junior High School Wednesday.
The host Panthers won the 14-team dual tournament with a perfect 10-0 record and also grabbed the Most Valuable Wrestling Award by the coaches which went to sophomore Drew Opfer.
Hopewell-Loudon junior Nick Frisch, who finished 10-0 at 135 pounds, was chosen as the MVP on a vote by the officials working the tournament.
Opfer, who was 10-0 at 125 pounds, and Frisch each were named to the all-tournament first team.
Others from the area named to the first team were Mohawk junior Joel Everhart (9-1 at 171), Hopewell-Loudon junior Doug Jesse (9-1 at 119) and Senior East senior Steve Stacklin (8-0 at 145). The only loss for Jesse was a 5-3 overtime setback at the hands of Drew Opfer.
St. Mary's dominated the tournament first team with six selections including Jared Opfer (10-0 at 130), Shawn Whelan (10-0 at 160), Sean M. Finneran (9-0 at 140), Gio Gallaro (9-0 at 215), Jeff Schmidt (8-0 at 103) and Drew Opfer.
Five area wrestlers made the all-tournament second team including Bo Meisner (215) and John May (160) of Mohawk. Both finished with 9-1 records for the two-day affair.
St. Wendelin had two second team picks including Lucas Hawkins with a 9-1 record at 215 and Brad Welly who went 8-1 at 145. Calvert's Rick Bridinger also made the second team with an 8-1 mark at 275.
Mohawk finished third in the tournament with an 8-2 record, losing only to St. Mary's and Evergreen. Lakota was fourth with a 7-3 mark and two of their losses came on Wednesday to Mohawk (30-27) and Evergreen (37-34). They had earlier lost to St. Mary's by a 56-9 score on Tuesday. The Raiders won three matches on Wednesday including a 43-23 win over Hopewell-Loudon, 76-0 blanking of Delphos St. John's and 63-18 rout of Spencerville.
''I really thought we would do better, but we just weren't as sharp as we've been in past matches,'' said Lakota head coach Joe Wyant.
The Raiders, who are 9-3 in duals this season heading into the Suburban Lakes League Duals Jan. 15 and 16, also had sophomore Tim Ollom go 9-1 at 112, junior Matt Lawrence was 8-2 at 215, senior Jay Fry was 8-2 at 152, senior Jared Lowery went 8-2 at 125, sophomore Chris Stines posted a 7-3 record at 119, sophomore Presley Bloom was 7-3 at 130 and senior Tim Weller was 7-3 at 135.
Lima Central Catholic was fifth in the tournament with a 6-4 mark while Monroeville was also 6-4 for sixth, St. Wendelin was 6-4 for seventh, Plymouth took eight at 4-6, Seneca East was ninth at 4-6, Hopewell-Loudon was 10th with a 3-7 mark, Lincolnview was 11th at 3-7, Calvert was 12th at 2-8, Delphos St. John's was 13th at 1-9 and Spencerville was 14th at 1-9.