When two of the top-ranked high school teams in the state face each other, no matter what the sport, you can expect a battle.
That’s exactly what happened at Fred T. Foard on Tuesday night.
The Tigers, ranked No. 2 in the state in 3A by Retro Rankings, edged fifth-ranked St. Stephens 42-35 in the first Northwestern 3A-4A wrestling match of the season for both schools.
Foard improved to 21-1 and dropped the Indians to 21-7.
“We had some kids really step up when they needed to,” said Foard head coach Mike Carey.
The match literally came down to the final bout.
After Foard’s Caleb Griffin pinned Justin Kidd in one minute, 22 seconds at 120 pounds, the Tigers clung to a 36-35 lead with one match to go.
After a tough first period, Foard junior Michael Vincent (126) managed to get Chris Hunt’s shoulders to the mat 24 seconds into the second period. That set off a celebration for the Tigers.
“I was a little nervous watching as Caleb got the win in the match before mine, knowing what was going to be on the line,” Vincent said. “But when I put my foot on the line the jitters went away and I was ready to go and was able to get the pin.”
Carey attributed the win in the final bout to Vincent’s experience.
“Mikey is a tough nut,” Carey said. “He’s been in our lineup for three years now and has been there and done that, but that was a big match for him.
“He’s as tough as they come.”
The night started out with St. Stephens grabbing the early advantage when Hunter Schronce pinned Ben Pitts (5:45) at 132 pounds, and the Indians’ Ian Martin got a technical fall 18-3 win over Tate Blanton at 138.
St. Stephens’ Dale Huffman added a pin of Zach Edwards at 195 pounds and the Indians led 23-18.
“We got a couple of really big wins at 132 and 195,” said St. Stephens head coach Billy Baker. “Those were matches that we could have given up three points or we could have gotten three and ended up getting six.”
Carey said the Indians surprised the Tigers in the 132-pound and 195-pound matches.
“We went into both of those matches and got stuck and that made things a lot closer than we thought it was going to be, but our guys stepped up,” Carey said.
The Tigers later got two big wins with Nick Rotenberry (220) pinning Matthew Baker in 1:16, followed by the night’s quickest pin – Tanner Fleming needed 26 seconds to pin Dillon Lominac at 285 pounds for a 30-23 lead.
“The heavyweight match kind of looked like a grizzly bear attack,” Carey said. “It was a momentum shifter for us to get a quick pin like that and get everybody pumped.”
St. Stephens got back-to-back pins at 106 and 125 to regain the lead at 35-30. The Indians’ Blake Rogers defeated Lane Bonds in 30 seconds and Bradley Bader pinned Dylan Cassidy in 2:54.
That set up Griffin’s and Vincent’s pins to close out the match and give the Tigers the win.
“That’s probably as well as we have wrestled all year long,” Baker said. “We’ve struggled at times, but I felt like tonight we finally put it together and won some matches that could have gone the other way.
“In big matches anything can happen and they have a great team.”
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement