Sunday, December 19, 1999

Mohawk takes third at H-L tourney

By Ed Fox
Sports Writer

BASCOM &emdash; Northwestern was able to bounce back from a disastrous semifinal round to win the Hopewell-Loudon Holiday Wrestling Tournament championship Saturday.

The Huskies bounced back in the final round, winning eight of 12 matches, to win going away with 206 points while defending champion Elmwood was second with 183.5 and Mohawk was third with 179.5.

"We had a couple bad rounds before the finals," said Northwestern coach Spencer Hershey. "But the fact that we had 12 placers carried us and we won some big matches during the final round. It may not have been as dramatic as the first time we won it (1993) by half a point (over Carey) but it's always nice to win here."

After winning just three of nine matches during the semifinals, the Huskies came back with an 8-4 record during the finals. They won their final five bouts of the tournament including championship efforts by Carl Way (189) and Nate Held (215). Way won at 189 pounds last year and Held was able to upend defending 215 champion Steve Cotterman of Elmwood with a pin in overtime after finishing third behind him a year ago.

Despite winning just four of nine bouts in the finals Elmwood was able to stave off Mohawk for runner-up honors.

"We lost some close matches and that hurt us in trying to catch them (Northwestern)," said Elmwood coach Dave Lee. "I felt we were right with them going into the final round but just couldn't catch up. They have a nice team and I thought our kids wrestled well overall and it was a very competitive tournament."

The Royals had three champions who were placers a year ago including Sam Cotterman (second at 275), Wally Borowicz (3rd at 171) and Brian King (fifth at 145). Cotterman and Borowicz returned to the same weights but King moved up to 152.

Mohawk, which was fifth last year, moved up with the help of a strong final round. The Warriors, stung early by a number of byes in the first round on Friday, won seven of nine bouts during the finals.

"Those byes killed us on Friday," said Mohawk coach Bret Margraf. "We figured we would have to get all 10 of the kids we brought to place and we only had nine of them. We also took it on the chin in the semifinals as five of our eight kids lost including three in a row at one time."

The Warriors got championship efforts from a pair of underclassmen as junior Josh Kurth won at 145 pounds with a 9-3 decision over Roger Roman of Northwestern and sophomore Tyler Beckley followed at 160 with a 10-7 nod over Ray Lewis of Woodmore.

Mark Buckingham was also second for the Warriors at 103 following an 11-4 loss to two-time champion Ryan Derr of Cardinal Stritch.

The Warriors picked up five thirds including Kevin Ogg at 119, Aaron Roush at 140, Jon May at 171, Joel Everhart at 189 and Bo Meisner at 215. Josh Cook was also fourth at 130.

"Kurth and Beckley were pleasant surprises. It was the first tournament title for each of them and they are part of the future," said Margraf. "This was the first time out for us and we knew we could be in the thick of the title run. The tournament showed us that we need to do some polishing up."

Fostoria also had a sound final round to overtake Woodmore for fourth place. The Redmen won all seven bouts during the finals and finished with 151 points while Woodmore was fifth with 150.5.

"This is a nice way to finish. We were hurt by a high number of byes in the first round Friday," said Fostoria coach Chuck Mason. "Almost everyone won a match or two for us and this is a very good showing for us."

The Redmen had a pair of champions in Brandon Distel (135) and Nick Frisch. For both it was their second tournament title in two weeks as each won at the Mansfield Madison Coke Tournament last weekend.

The two had one more thing in common as each unseated a defending champion. Distel scored a 17-6 major decision over Elmwood's Nick Davis who won at 125 last year and Frisch won by default as Woodmore's Juventino Guillen who was unable to answer the bell after getting hurt in the semifinals. Guillen was 135-pound champion last year.

"Distel just destroyed his kid and that was a defending champion," said Mason. "Frisch was the most dominant kid in a tough 140 class. The threesome of Nate Heiser (third at 130), Distel and Frisch are as good as any three around. JJ Riley was also a surprise with third at 145. He didn't place last year and was unseeded."

The Redmen had one other third with Jesus Holguin at 112 and fifths from Zach Schroeder at 103 and Rory Orens at 119.

St. Wendelin, finishing sixth with 143 points, won four of nine matches in the finals and had one champion in Josh Prince who scored a 7-6 win over Adam Fedak of New London at 125.

The Mohawks also got a runner-up showing from Jack Bugner at 130 and Lucas Hawkins at 275 while Mark Sidle was third at 103. Joe Reinhart (171) and Shannon Dixie (215) took fifth while the trio of Charlie Frankart (135), Quentin Tiell (160) and Jake Frankart (189) were sixth.

Doug Jesse won his fourth title and was chosen MVP to help the host Chieftains finish ninth with 79 points. The Chieftains also got fourth-place finishes from Josh Schalk (103) and Jeff Smith (112) while Mike Steinmetz (125) and Justin Arbogast (275) were sixth.

Carey had 74 points for 10th place and had a trio of fourth-place showings from Josh Courtad (119), Joe Turner (171) and Chris Boes (275) along with sixths from Eric Hanna (140) and Scott Craig (152).

Columbian had one placer in Nick Shoemaker who was runner-up at 152 after being pinned in 5:24 by Brian King of Elmwood.

Calvert also had one placer as Britton Kimmet took fourth at 160 after getting pinned in 4:42 by Adam Knapp of Northwestern.