By: Mike Reeves
The Wauseon Indian wrestlers split two matches in the state dual meet tournament at Wauseon High School on Friday night with St. Mary’s Memorial and state-ranked Aurora.
In the opening match of the quadrangular meet the Indians knocked off St. Marys Memorial.
The match opened with Zavian LaFountain at 106 pounds surrendering a fall to Tate Hisey, the Indians Collin Twigg (113), hoping to wrestle a nemesis from last year, pinned his opponent and evened the match.
St. Mary’s 113-pound wrestler bumped up to 120 pounds and scored a victory over Larry Moreno who fought valiantly against the state-ranked foe.
At 126 pounds, John Martinez wrestled the bigger of the Hisey twins, who also is state-ranked and kept Wauseon in the match by nearly pulling off a win.
At 138 pounds, Lawson Grime proved why he is ranked No. 5 in the state by easily defeating his Roughrider foe who was ranked No.3 at 132 pounds.
In the 144lb class, Benicio Torres proved he can stay with anybody in the state again, by defeating his St. Marys opponent.
The crowd was really into the closely contested match involving junior Manny Gante who got the win at 150 pounds as the score continued to go back and forth.
At 157, Conner Twigg defeated his St. Marys state ranked wrestler and at 165 pounds, Conner Nagel pinned his opponent in a short time and kept Wauseon in the lead.
At 175, junior Zaidan Kessler won with a pin fall and Wauseon was well on their way to securing the dual meet victory.
Justin Duncan picked up a win at 190lbs and first-year wrestler Adam Rodgers fell in a competitive match at 215.
The Indians forfeited at Heavyweight and with the victory moved on to wrestle against a state-ranked Aurora team which has numerous highly rank wrestlers with their 190-pounder ranked No. 1 in the nation
In this match that started at 113 pounds, Collin Twigg again got a dominant win before the 120-pound Aurora state ranked Cuebe tied the score by pinning Larry Moreno.
At 126, again John Martinez kept the Indians within striking distance wrestling very well against his Aurora opponent.
In the 132-pound bout, Carter Nofziger stepped in for an injured Zaden Torres and defeated Aurora’s No. 3 ranked Cheetam keeping Wauseon alive.
At 138 pounds, senior Lawson Grime put the Indians ahead with a win before Gante was defeated at 144 and Conner Twigg (157), wrestling at this weight for the first time this year, took a hard fought two-point loss to another state ranked wrestler as Aurora took the lead.
In the 165-pound division Nagel lost by fall followed by a Kessler win at 175.
Wauseon forfeited the next three weights which clinched the match for Aurora thus sending them to the Division II Team Dual State Finals