Sunday, January 23, 2000

Bellevue still top dog

By Ed Fox
Sports Writer

UPPER SANDUSKY&emdash; Bellevue wrestlers had an answer for every challenge at the Northern Ohio League Duals.

But Columbian and Upper Sandusky certainly positioned themselves for a run at the overall title when the tournament is held at Willard Feb. 12.

Bellevue finished 7-0 at the two-day event at Upper Sandusky, going undefeated against NOL teams in duals for the sixth straight year. Norwalk was the last league team to defeat the Redmen and that came early in the 1993-94 campaign.

The perfect finish puts the Redmen in the driver's seat heading into the tournament. The dual victory points and the points for the team finish at the tournament are combined to determine the overall league champion. Last year Bellevue won with a perfect 14 points. They were 7-0 at the duals and finished ahead of seven schools at the tournament. Columbian and Upper Sandusky tied for second with nine points.

Trailing Bellevue at this year's Duals were Columbian and Upper Sandusky with 5 1/2 points, Shelby with four, Willard with three, Galion two, Bucyrus one and Norwalk none.

After going 1-1-1 on Friday the Tornadoes bounced back with a 3-1 mark Saturday including victories over Bucyrus (48-6), Norwalk (75-6) and Galion (46-15) before losing to Bellevue (54-15).

"I thought we wrestled very well for two days," said Columbian mentor John Tomaszewski. "The last match against Bellevue was really tough. They have a lot of good athletes from top to bottom and it's hard matching up with all of them. I'm really happy with the way the kids wrestled. There are definitely some things we have to work on and hopefully we can learn from this and get better."

The Tornadoes won 57 of 90 bouts with a trio of grapplers going unscathed with 7-0 records including seniors Maxum Tomaszewski (145), Joe Ranker (189) and Allan Weickert (215). Leo Hoerig also went 6-1 at 171 while Kris Adams (125) and Steve Lee (160) were each 5-2 and the trio of Chris Lee (130), Matt Murphy (135) and Nick Shoemaker (152) were 4-3. Scott Ardner just missed going .500 with a 3-4 mark at 119 while Eric Ardner went 2-5 at 140, Anthony Beeby was 2-4 at 275, Rob Murphy went 1-2 and Richie Gilbert was 0-4.

"Shelby, Willard and Upper Sandusky have some very good individuals. If they are able to work their way into the finals it could really open things up for teams to catch Bellevue," said Tomaszewski. "All our kids wrestled hard. We got out of here and nobody got hurt and most of the kids we brought won matches so those are positives.

"Weickert, Ranker and Maxum were undefeated. They're the seniors and they came through and set a good example. I'm very satisfied with what we accomplished and it should make for an interesting tournament."

After going 1-1-1 on Friday including a 29-29 tie with the Tornadoes, Upper Sandusky bounced back strong to go 4-0 on Saturday including wins over Norwalk (66-15), Galion (45-26), Shelby (41-33) and Bucyrus (57-24). The Rams were looking at a 33-11 deficit against Shelby only to come back with five straight pins to close out the match with a win.

"Excellent day. I'm really pleased," said Upper Sandusky first-year mentor Bill Thornton. "They actually came out and wrestled like I knew they could. We wrestled Shelby and it was truly a team effort. I couldn't ask for anything more from them."

Other than the loss to Bellevue and tie with Columbian Friday the Rams had their closest call with Shelby.

"My 112-pounder (Darren Rowland) didn't get pinned against a quality kid (Chad Adkins) and our 125-pounder Trey Vince got a pin and those were key matches against Shelby. Also our 152-pounder (Travis Yeater) didn't get pinned against one of the best wrestlers in the league in (Joe) Heiland and then our heavier weights got the job done like they did in many of the matches."

Only senior Ed Call (135) went undefeated for the Rams with a perfect 7-0 mark. Joe Kennedy (160) and Luke Latham (215) went 6-1 and Jon Wilch went 4-1 at 189. The Rams had three others at 5-2 including Rowland, Yeater and Dennis Karcher (171) while Vince (125) and Paul Lehman (275) went 4-3 and Justin Hoerig (140) went 2-2. Upper Sandusky went 54 of 89 matches during the two-day affair.

"There was constant movement by the kids today and that was good to see," said Thornton. "I still think we're one of the top three teams in the NOL and the tournament is going to be exciting. We've stressed to the kids that they have to win those close matches to reach the next level. I think they're finally realizing it. I'm very proud of what they did today."

Bellevue dominated the tournament by winning 82 of 98 bouts and the Redmen averaged nearly 60 points a match while their opponents averaged 10. They had four undefeated wrestlers including Joe Smith (103), Aaron Garman (125), Dan Jarrett (130) and Robert Edgington (275).

"I didn't really expect this. I thought there would be some close matches," said Bellevue coach Jim DePolo. "This is the best we've wrestled this year. The lighter weights really took over each time out and our heavyweight really came through and went undefeated. There were some great efforts. Our lighter weights are our strength. People might have been able to pick off one or two of them but we were still able to win a lot of matches down below. The first seven kids are pretty solid. I think we even surprised ourselves."

There were four others who went 7-0 for the two days including Bobby Parish of Willard at 112, Noah Blankenship of Bucyrus at 119 and the Shelby duo of Jeff Young at 140 and Joe Heiland at 152.

Shelby edged past Willard (32-30) and Bellevue clubbed Galion (69-3) in other fourth-round action while Willard manhandled Bucyrus (52-6) and Bellevue doubled the count on Shelby (44-22) in round five. Bellevue also defeated Willard (46-18) and Bucyrus beat Norwalk (52-36) in round six while Willard routed Norwalk (64-6) and Shelby topped Galion (46-27) in the final round.