Tiger Grapplers Rule Invite
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
Before Saturday's Warsaw Invitational wrestling meet, Warsaw senior Steve Fribley paced back and forth wearing a sweatshirt with the words 'Think State' in bold letters on the front.
"I wear it to keep me from getting distracted," said Fribley. "I wore it in track, football and now I'll wear it to every wrestling meet. I want to go to state more than anything."
Fribley, his team and five other teams got their first chances on the road to state Saturday when Warsaw hosted a six-team invitational.
The Tigers ran away with the team championship, compiling a 5-0 record. Other area schools, Whitko, Triton and Valley, finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Warsaw set the tone for the rest of the day early defeating Valley 70-6 in the first contest. The Tigers almost swept the Vikings, but lost in the 171-pound class when David Reese, who went 5-0 on the day, beat Kris Hueber. According to Warsaw coach Tony Boley the tournament was a learning experience, but the major factor was just getting as many of his grapplers as possible a chance to wrestle.
"We learned a lot," said Boley. "Most of it we already knew, but the hardest thing so far has been getting the whole team to workout in practice. The problem is we have so many kids it's hard to practice.
"We're going to have to move the mats around to different areas of the school and split them up into groups, but it's a good problem. We're way behind, but that's because we have so many kids out."
For the Tigers, their closest competition and only true test of the day came in the third round against Kokomo.
"I stuck Nick McKinley (135) in there for Joe Wildman, who didn't wrestle," said Boley. "He was ahead 4-0, but made a mistake and got beat. After that we were down 24-22, but Matt Zellars got us back on track, and we handled everyone else."
Warsaw had six individual champions in the tournament including Zellars who set a Warsaw Invitational milestone.
"Zellars won his fourth straight Warsaw Invite," said Boley. "Overall we mad a lot of mistakes, but at the same time our conditioning and technique was better.
Valley finished the day 0-5, but was able to produce one individual champion, Reese in the 171 pound class.
Triton ended the day with a 1-4 record and one individual champion, but coach Sam Davis was happy with the effort his team put forth.
"Overall I thought we did pretty decent considering we only had about 11 guys," said Davis. "We made some mistakes, we just missed several moves. It's a case where it was the first meet and the kids know better, but if they just think about the move they'll miss it."
Josh Hooley posted a 5-0 record to win the individual championship in the 135 pound class.
"He (Hooley) had four pins and a decision," said Davis. "He will probably be the bright spot for us this year, but Matt Wanamacher and Jason Lemler went 4-1, and Brandon Champman wrestled sick and still went 2-2."
Whitko came out of the tournament with a 2-3 record to finish in fourth place. They won one individual championship in the 215 pound class with Jerimiah Rakoczy's 5-0 record. Rakoczy was also named the tournament's most outstanding wrestler. [[In-content Ad]]
Before Saturday's Warsaw Invitational wrestling meet, Warsaw senior Steve Fribley paced back and forth wearing a sweatshirt with the words 'Think State' in bold letters on the front.
"I wear it to keep me from getting distracted," said Fribley. "I wore it in track, football and now I'll wear it to every wrestling meet. I want to go to state more than anything."
Fribley, his team and five other teams got their first chances on the road to state Saturday when Warsaw hosted a six-team invitational.
The Tigers ran away with the team championship, compiling a 5-0 record. Other area schools, Whitko, Triton and Valley, finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Warsaw set the tone for the rest of the day early defeating Valley 70-6 in the first contest. The Tigers almost swept the Vikings, but lost in the 171-pound class when David Reese, who went 5-0 on the day, beat Kris Hueber. According to Warsaw coach Tony Boley the tournament was a learning experience, but the major factor was just getting as many of his grapplers as possible a chance to wrestle.
"We learned a lot," said Boley. "Most of it we already knew, but the hardest thing so far has been getting the whole team to workout in practice. The problem is we have so many kids it's hard to practice.
"We're going to have to move the mats around to different areas of the school and split them up into groups, but it's a good problem. We're way behind, but that's because we have so many kids out."
For the Tigers, their closest competition and only true test of the day came in the third round against Kokomo.
"I stuck Nick McKinley (135) in there for Joe Wildman, who didn't wrestle," said Boley. "He was ahead 4-0, but made a mistake and got beat. After that we were down 24-22, but Matt Zellars got us back on track, and we handled everyone else."
Warsaw had six individual champions in the tournament including Zellars who set a Warsaw Invitational milestone.
"Zellars won his fourth straight Warsaw Invite," said Boley. "Overall we mad a lot of mistakes, but at the same time our conditioning and technique was better.
Valley finished the day 0-5, but was able to produce one individual champion, Reese in the 171 pound class.
Triton ended the day with a 1-4 record and one individual champion, but coach Sam Davis was happy with the effort his team put forth.
"Overall I thought we did pretty decent considering we only had about 11 guys," said Davis. "We made some mistakes, we just missed several moves. It's a case where it was the first meet and the kids know better, but if they just think about the move they'll miss it."
Josh Hooley posted a 5-0 record to win the individual championship in the 135 pound class.
"He (Hooley) had four pins and a decision," said Davis. "He will probably be the bright spot for us this year, but Matt Wanamacher and Jason Lemler went 4-1, and Brandon Champman wrestled sick and still went 2-2."
Whitko came out of the tournament with a 2-3 record to finish in fourth place. They won one individual championship in the 215 pound class with Jerimiah Rakoczy's 5-0 record. Rakoczy was also named the tournament's most outstanding wrestler. [[In-content Ad]]