A WITty story about losing and winning on the wrestling mat
First, it was 126-lb. junior Lane Darr, who dropped a 14-9 decision against Zack Nelson of Waynedale, Wednesday, Dec. 7, but avoided getting pinned by one of the Golden Bears’ top wrestlers, allowing the Knights to eventually rally for a 35-30 team victory.
Then, on Thursday, Dec. 15, 132-lb. sophomore Charlie Evans helped West Holmes escape from Dover with a 37-36 win, losing a 20-15 decision against the Tornadoes’ Wes Grandison, but staying off of his back and keeping the Knights close enough to bounce back for the one-point win.
“Even though he lost a hard fought match he didn’t get pinned,” 22nd year head coach Jeff Woods explained to West Holmes Knights Wrestling Newsletter publisher Bret Curren afterward. “That was huge. If that would’ve happened, we wouldn’t have won this dual.”
But they might not have won either dual if it weren’t also for the luck of the draw, which saw 145-lb. junior, and 2010 State placer, Max Rohskopf, and 152-lb. two-time State qualifying senior Justin Stitzlein wrestle the final two bouts against Waynedale and two of the final three at Dover.
“Even though Darr lost, he showed some real fight,” Woods told Curren after pulling out the win against Waynedale. “That match kept us in the meet until we got to our big guns. And Max and Justin did a great job.”
Against Waynedale, Rohskopf managed to pin Dakota Stanley with only 44 seconds remaining in the third period, before Stitzlein worked Jared Orr for a 5-0 decision.
Those two matches pulled the Knights out of a 30-26 deficit and pushed them to the 35-30 victory.
Eight days later, wrestling at 138-lbs., Rohskopf followed Evans to the mat with West Holmes trailing 30-27.
Forty-one seconds later the Knights were leading Dover 33-30, after the West Holmes junior pinned the Tornadoes’ Wyatt Fishel, but Dover 145-pounder Grant Kimble took only 49 seconds to return the favor, winning by fall against Knights sophomore Tyler McElroy and putting the Tornadoes back in front 36-33.
Needing more than just a decision to secure the team victory in the final match of the evening, Stitzlein responded with an 11-3 major decision against Dover 152-pounder Nick Weininger, picking up four points and moving the Knights to 2-1 in dual meet competition (they were beaten in their first head-to-head meet of the season 45-30 by Northwestern).
“That wasn’t pretty,” Woods said to Curren after the Dover meet. “We had our bright spots, but overall we didn’t wrestle well. Our tried and true came through for us tonight. We’re lucky to get out of here with a win.”
Woods may have been expecting more from his team after watching 10 of his 14 wrestlers place at the 41st annual Wayne Invitational Tournament (WIT), held Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 10 inside the Wilber Berkey Fieldhouse at Smithville High School.
“We don’t wrestle a whole lot of duals,” he said prior to winning the third annual Southeastern Ohio Medical Center Bobcat Invitational Tournament at Cambridge High School, to open the 2011-12 season back on Dec. 3. “It’s not the same as Sectionals, Districts and State.”
For one thing, winning is the only thing that matters at the Invitationals and post-season meets, and a loss is a loss no matter how it occurs.
“I’m not setting my expectations low this year because of the roster,” added Woods prior to the start of the season.
But that roster lost 170 wins from a year ago and brought back only 125 – 94 of which belonged to Rohskopf (31), and the senior tandem of Stitzlein (41) and two-time District qualifier Marshall Overholt (22) – leaving youth and inexperience at many of the other spots up and down the lineup.
Going into the 18-school WIT as the defending team champion, West Holmes captured two titles and a runners-up finish from its big three, as Rohskopf (145-lbs.) and Overholt (160-lbs.) both went 4-0 to win championships – with Rohskopf pinning Norwayne’s Kurt Moore 1:45 into the second period of their championship bout to earn his third straight WIT crown – and Stitzlein won his first three matches by fall, fall and technical fall before dropping a 5-2 decision against Corey Fitzgerald of Akron Green in the title match.
Green would eventually win the team championship with 203.5 points, while West Holmes (186) took second and Canton GlenOak (172.5), New Philadelphia (144.5) and Smithville (142) rounded out the top five.
In fact, going into the finals Saturday evening, West Holmes trailed Green by only 5.5 points (175.5-170), with three Bulldogs wrestlers looking for championships, along with Rohskopf, Stitzlein and Overholt, and three more Green wrestlers hoping for third-place finishes, along with three from West Holmes.
In another head-to-head match, 106-lb. sophomore Tyler Nichols was pinned by Green’s Noah Schaub 1:44 into the opening period of their consolation finals match, leaving Nichols in fourth-place with a 3-2 record.
But after dropping a 6-3 decision to Wooster’s Nate Stebbins during the championship quarterfinals, Darr responded with four straight wins to take third-place at 126-lbs., pinning Stebbins at the 4:06 mark of the consolation finals in a hard-fought rematch.
Senior, 113-pounder Tyler Brown also fought hard, but lost a 4-1 decision in the consolation finals to finish fourth, while 170-lb. sophomore Grayson Miller dropped a 12-4 major decision against Jake Zeigler of Ridgewood to finish 3-2 and wrap up another fourth-place finish.
West Holmes placed three more grapplers, to stay ahead of GlenOak for second-place, as 195-lb. sophomore Conway Baldridge, 220-lb. sophomore Ray O’Donnell and 285-lb. junior Tyler Singleton each finished sixth in his weight class.
“Second is OK,” Woods told Curren afterward. “Heading into the finals I was thinking, a good round and we might just win this thing. The finals were not good.”
Neither was what Woods saw five nights later even though Overholt knocked off Brogan Endres with a 3-1 sudden victory decision to start the Dover dual meet at 160-lbs.; Miller pinned Troy Arbogast 5:04 into their 170-lb. match; and West Holmes junior Matt Schlegel took only a minute to pin Gage Sommers, giving West Holmes an early 15-0 lead.
But then, Baldridge succumbed to Dover’s Andrew Little 2:50 into their 195-lb. match to make it 15-6 in favor of the Knights, before O’Donnell won by forfeit to push the lead back out to 21-6.
The heavyweight, Singleton, and the 106-pounder, Nichols, were beaten in succession – each by fall – to cut the lead to 21-18, before Brown pinned Matt Maretta of the Tornadoes 4:16 into the 113-lb. bout, making it 27-18 in favor of West Holmes.
And that’s when things got dicey, as 120-lb. Knights junior Zed Fry found himself pinned by Dover’s Ty Miller 3:57 into their match; Darr dropped a 6-1 decision against Isaac Hammonds at 126-lbs.; and Evans lost to Grandison to give Dover its first lead and setup the fantastic finish.
But to Woods it wasn’t a fantastic sign for the Knights heading into two of the toughest, most prestigious invitationals in the entire country – Dec. 28 and 29 at the Medina Tournament, and Jan. 13 and 14 at the Top Gun Tournament in Alliance.
A loss at those tournaments doesn’t bring you any closer to winning.
Published: December 15, 2011
