The young Warsaw Tiger wrestling team tangled with a visiting squad of veteran Northridge Raiders Wednesday. With four seniors and seven juniors, the Raiders won nine of the 14 matchest on the brand new mat to take the 46-30 victory.
On senior night, Warsaw's two representatives of the class of 2009 each nabbed first-period falls. Justin Brooks (119 pounds) remained unbeaten on the season after he pinned Brandon Gannon in 1:29. Adam Keener (152) pinned Ric Powers in 1:10."I think it was a great send-off for Justin and Adam for senior night," said Warsaw coach Justin Smith. "They went out there and were outstanding, wrestling at an even higher level than what they usually do for us."
On the team's performance, Smith continued, "We wrestled well, we built a lead, and we wrestled to our strengths in the lower weights, but we are giving up a lot of experience and we gave up a lot of weight. We have someone who barely weighs 171 wrestling at 189 and this makes it difficult to come by wins in the upper weight classes. I applaud the kids, but they are tired. It is our second match in a row and we go at it again tomorrow night."
Two other Tiger core wrestlers notched falls. Jarred Brooks (103) only used one takedown to quickly pin Faith Hume in just 28 seconds. Paul Manbu (135) dominated Drake Heims, scoring the fall in 1:40.
Jordon Horney (125), one of the younger up-and-coming Tigers, showed vast improvement in the direction of maturity, putting together strings and combinations of moves against the Raiders' Dustin White.
After a slow first period the score was 2-1 in favor of Horney. In period two, with a takedown and a couple of nearfalls, he bumped the score up to 11-2. Then, in the final stanza, the Tiger sophomore came out on fire and took White to the mat, scoring the fall at 4:53.
"Jordan really turned it on tonight," said Smith. "That is the kind of intensity that we need to show every time and I think he has gone to that next level."
Summing up his praise for the team, Smith said, "Our kids really got themselves fired up and we really went after it today, but we went up against a veteran team and it showed. But I was happy for our seniors and our new equipment, the new mat looked great thanks to our athletic director, and we go after Goshen tomorrow."
The Tigers wrap up their dual season tonight at Goshen, the final Northern Lakes Conference meeting. Warsaw is now 1-5 in the conference and 13-8 on the season. Meanwhile, Northridge finishes the season at 14-4 (5-2 NLC) and will host the conference tournament Saturday. The tournament will be held in the main gym of the middle school.
