By: Mike Reeves
Area wrestling teams began their quest for Columbus last Saturday as the individual state tournament began with sectionals, where the top four placers in each weight class advanced to this week’s districts.
Archbold High School was the site of the Division III sectionals where Delta, Archbold and Tinora traded the team score lead all day, but in the end Archbold earned a sectional team championship with Delta a close third.
Archbold took home four individual titles beginning with Gabe Chapa who was the champion at 132 after a 2-1 win over Anden Ankney of Tinora and Brodie Dominique won the title at 144 by fall over Evergreen’s Isaac Overfeld.
The last two championships of the day for the Bluestreaks came from Wyat Ripke (190) who earned a 6-5 decision over Abe DeLano from Ayersville and Dylan Aeschliman (215) who won by fall over Kobe Foor of Paulding.
Also advancing for Archbold was Mason Miller (106), Jordan Rodriguez (113), Jack Buchop (126), Ian Grime (150), Edward Yoder (165), and Hayden Dickman (175).
For Delta, Adam Mattin won the title at 106 with a fall over Braedyn Tammerine of Liberty Center in 3:00 minutes.
At 113, freshman Tyler Barnes pinned Jordan Rodriquez of Archbold in 2:58 while Anthony Hernandez fell short at 120 in a close match to Liberty Center’s Drew Matthews.
At 126, Robby Bennett of Fairview beat senior Evan Hanefeld in a 3-2 decision and Landon Lintermoot (132) placed placed third with a win by fall.
Parker Cone (138) would place fourth to qualify for the Panthers and Conner Sintobin would place third with a solid victory to earn his spot at Rossford and end the team scoring for the Panthers.
The Evergreen Vikings wrestled their way to a fifth-place team finish by sending five wrestlers to districts starting with Brodie Setmire (120) who placed third, Jack Stubleski (138) also placed third, while Overfeld, Max Mossing, and Grant Richardson were runner-ups at 144, 150, and 165, respectively.
Swanton advanced three wrestlers to districts as part of a sixth-place team finish with Gabe Stevens (106), Chase Godwin (113), Kamron Kirtz (215) moving on to Rossford.
Edgerton and Montpelier had one wrestler each advance to districts as Gavin Hawkins was fourth at 126 for Edgerton and Logan Pontious (215) placed fourth for the Locos.
In Division II at Defiance, Wauseon would dominate the field to win the team championship and qualify 12 wrestlers for district competition.
It started at 106 where Zavian LaFountain went 3-0 with a fall in the finals over Cohen Lewis of BG.
At 113, freshman Joe Lugabihl came in unseeded and garnered a fourth-place finish and a pass to Norwalk High School for his shot at state.
At 120, senior Larry Moreno led the charge to the district meet in dominating fashion going 4-0 for his day ending with a 15-7 decision over Harrison Bohls from Napoleon.
In the 126 class, Wauseon’s Collin Twigg had a bye and two falls before a 13-3 dismantling of Skyler Kirk from Elida in the title bout.
The 132-pound division saw Zaden Torres fall in the final match to Mason Ducat of Defiance 10-4 before two local grapplers punched tickets to districts at 138 as Wauseon’s Antonio Torres placed third and Bryan sophomore Jordan Cook from Bryan finished second, losing in the finals by a pinfall.
At 144, Benicio Torres won a title for the Indians by going 3-0 on the day with Kale Waxler (157) from Wauseon cruising to a sectional title with two falls and a major decision over Corbin Mitchell from Wapakoneta 14-6 in his finals match.
Zaidan Kessler smashed his way to a title for Wauseon at 165 with three solid falls and Chance Snow (175) would qualify by taking home third.
Junior Jaydon Dennis of Bryan earned a fourth-place finish at 175 to advance to Rossford.
The 190-pound division would see another Indian champion in junior Austin Kovar who would wrestle to a 4-0 record on the day beating Henry Eggers of Napoleon 6-1 in the finals.
Justin Duncan of Wauseon proved to be the class of the 215-pound division winning the title over senior Jack Schaefer from St. Marys Memorial 7-5.
At heavyweight, Bryan’s Zain Bell took a hard fought third place to qualify for Norwalk.
Wauseon finished with 288 points to runner-up Napoleon with 206 to claim another sectional crown.
The Division II district will be held this weekend at Norwalk while Division III will convene at Rossford.
DIVISION III SECTIONALS
1. Archbold 232.5; 2. Tinora 184.0; 3. Delta 173.5; 4. Liberty Center 150.5; 5. Evergreen 118.0; 6. Swanton 98.5; 7. Fairview 98.0; 8. Ayersville 89.5; 9. Paulding 77.0; 10. Edgerton 52.0; 11. Hicksville 40.0; 12. Antwerp 35.5; 13. Montpelier 23.0
DIVISION II SECTIONALS
1. Wauseon 288.5; 2. Napoleon 206.5; 3. Wapakoneta 178.5; 4. Celina 139.0; 5. St. Marys 138.0; 6. Bowling Green 136.0; 7. Bryan 81.0; 8. Defiance 65.5; 9. Van Wert 62.5; 10. Elida 57.5; 11. Bath 46.0; 12. Lima Shawnee 42.0