ELKHART - Warsaw Community High School's wrestlers traveled to Elkhart Memorial for the Tigers' first Northern Lakes Conference match of the season Tuesday. The host Chargers, ranked eighth in the state and lately the perennial NLC powerhouse, came out the winners, 54-19.
Memorial is now 6-0 and acknowledging their strength."I thought Memorial did a nice job of coming out and being aggressive, especially on their feet," said Warsaw coach Tony Boley. "We are dealing with youth, but they are also pretty young, although they have more sophomores where we have freshmen."
On his own team's performance Boley said, "I didn't think that the core, our upper classmen, wrestled as well as I had anticipated they would. While Memorial was on the attack, I felt that we were a little more tentative. We need to be more aggressive. we need to turn it up in practice, absolutely."
Justin Brooks (112 pounds) won by fall in 2:35 over Nick Nelson after first racking up a score of 11-3. Matt Elvidge (140) tussled with Jake Leitch and came out with seven takedowns and a near fall to earn a 17-7 major decision.
After a strong first period, Adam Keener (145) was challenged by Carmel Salinas in the two concluding periods but managed to hang on for a 7-2 win. Andy Keener (152) was in control throughout his entire match, snapping up takedowns with cat-like quickness before pinning Rex Hickman in period two at the 2:56 mark.
These four remain undefeated, notching the only wins for the Tigers.
The junior varsity Tigers grabbed just three wins in 10 matches of competition. Ryan Lowe (112) won by fall in 2:57 and Ross Hoover notched a pin in 4:53, while Sebastian Hoskins (140) earned a 16-1 tech fall.
At 6-0 (1-0 NLC), Memorial takes on a second conference foe when it goes to Dunlap to face Concord Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Tigers, at 4-2 (0-1 NLC), look ahead to more non-conference work when they travel to Valparaiso for a super-dual invitational on Saturday at 9 a.m. Central Time.
ELKHART MEMORIAL 54, WARSAW 19
103 - Mike Moore (Elkhart Memorial) pinned Tyler Wetzel (Warsaw), 1:48
112 - Justin Brooks (W) pinned Nick Nelson (E), 2:35
119 - Kevin Kelly (E) pinned Jordan Horney (W), 2:29
125 - Brandon Harvey (E) def. Steven Palladino (W), 11-5
