AKRON - Manchester and Tippecanoe Valley met in a Three Rivers Conference wrestling dual at Valley, with the Vikings coming out on top 36-33 Monday evening.

Both teams are young, and both teams came to the event with identical records of 0-6.

Only nine matches were wrestled.

Manchester received a forfeit at 112 pounds and then sent junior Austin Pence (119) against Valley's Robert Bauters, a freshman. In a minute and fifteen seconds it was over, with Pence recording a fall to put the Squires on top 6-0.

Manchester added a victory at 125 pounds when Travis Wood battled back from a 4-1 deficit to grab a 10-9 victory over Tony Landry and the team score stood at 15-0.

Valley won the next four matches to move into the lead.

Viking freshman Kyle Horn (130) stuck Rick Morgan in 25 seconds, and then A.J. Austin (135) pinned Manchester's Kyle Coffey in 1:43. Elijoe Yoder (140) added six to the Valley team score, winning by injury default over Chance Shockey.

Then Matt Combs (145) of Valley nailed Eddie Black at the 5:12 mark.

Joel Rogers (152) garnered a win for Manchester when he bull-dogged Valley's Andrew Runyon for the fall 19 seconds into the second period.

The major battle of the evening was at 160 pounds, and a pin for Valley would seal the win. Valley standout Jordan Shultz, a sophomore, faced off against a strong Caleb Marks.

Shultz took down Marks quite forcefully in the opening seconds, but the move was negated as unnecessary roughness and Marks was awarded a penalty point. Shultz came back with a clean heel pick to score a clean takedown, putting the score at 2-1.

In period two, Shultz chose the down position and was unable to escape the control of Marks, who grabbed an ankle at every stand-up effort. In the third period Marks chose the up position and Shultz changed tactics and scored a reversal before recording a fall at 4:25. The team score was 30-21.

Tyler Stevens of Manchester was awarded a forfeit at 171 pounds, and then teammate Jon Rogers (189) quickly flattened Valley's Dakota Brown in 21 seconds. This final tally for the Squires put them on top 33-30, but it would not be enough since Valley was awarded a forfeit at 215 and double forfeits in the remaining classes left the score at 36-33 in favor of Valley.

"I'm glad we won, but I'm not happy with the way we wrestled," said Valley head coach Scott Smith. "We need to go back and work on some simple things, we made middle school mistakes in high school wrestling, but we're all young and inexperienced, and we work hard."

Smith went on to praise the Squires for wrestling well, but noted that they are also a young team.

Patrick Powers, head coach of the Squires, looked at the bottom line and said, "We lost, and we can't be happy with that. I liked the effort that we made. Guys that were injured wrestled, in fact they came here nursing injuries, but they put the effort forth."

The Squires, who are now 0-7 (0-3 in the TRC), travel to Caston Saturday for the Super Six dual meet. Tippecanoe Valley, 1-6 overall and 1-0 in the TRC, heads to a dual meet at North Judson Thursday.

TIPPECANOE VALLEY 36, MANCHESTER 33

103 - double forfeit

112 - Cody Brubaker (Manchester), forfeit

119 - Austin Pence (M) pinned Robert Bauters (Tippecanoe Valley), 1:15

125 - Travis Wood (M) def. Tony Landry (TV), 10-9

130 - Kyle Horn (TV) pinned Rick Morgan (M), :25

135 - A.J. Austin (TV) pinned Kyle Coffey (M), 1:43

140 - Elijoe Yoder (TV) def. Chance Shocky (M), injury default

145 - Matt Combs (TV) pinned Eddie Black (M), 5:12

152 - Joel Rogers (M) pinned Andrew Runyon (TV), 2:19

160 - Jordan Shultz (TV) pinned Caleb Marks (M), 4:25

171 - Tyler Stevens (M), forfeit

189 - Jon Rogers (M) pinned Dakota Braun (TV), :21

215 - Jason Yoder (TV), forfeit

275 - double forfeit [[In-content Ad]]