#MondayMatness: Jimmies Rise to the Occasion

By STEVE KRAH

stvkrh905@gmail.com

Plenty of practice and coaching reminders gave Jimtown High School wrestlers to succeed during a recent grueling stretch.

The Jimmies placed 11th out of 32 teams in the 37th annual Al Smith Classic, held Dec. 29-30 at Mishawaka. Jimtown junior Kenny Kerrn took top honors at 145 pounds.

On Saturday, Jan. 2, the Jimmies finished second out of 12 squads in the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association State Duals at Fort Wayne’s Memorial Coliseum. Jimtown edged Yorktown 31-30 in the semifinals before bowing 46-23 to Bellmont in the Class 3A finals.

Jimtown head coach Mark Kerrn and his staff got the Jimmies ready for the tough week with quality mat time the week after Christmas and through visualization and confidence-building drills.

Repetition in practice and time spent in the high school off-season at tournaments, camps and Indiana State Wrestling Association Regional Training Center sessions at Jimtown, Penn and Mishawaka continues to get the Jimmies ready for whatever they face during a match.

“We work a lot in practice on situations,” Mark Kerrn said. “It’s about knowing what the score is and (getting an extra point or avoiding giving one up). We’ve been making good decisions.”

Kerrn constantly talks about the effort it takes to be a Jimmie wrestler and the family bond that is being built though the shared hard work.

“A lot of kids sacrificed (in the State Duals, especially against Yorktown),” Mark Kerrn said. “They were getting thrown in against better wrestlers, but they were unselfish.”

In giving Yorktown its first-ever loss in State Duals competition in an event began in 2012-13, Jimtown got pin victories from sophomore Hunter Whitman (113), Kenny Kerrn (145) and senior Ben Davis (182), a major decision victory from junior Dalton Heintzberger (170) and decision triumphs from freshman Matt Gimson (120), senior Jarod Hayes (195) and junior Nick Mammolenti (heavyweight).

The Jimmies yielded two pins to the Tigers, but no other “bonus” points (four for a major decision, five of a technical fall or six for a pin or forfeit).

Mammolenti won 4-3 in overtime and freshman Hunter Watts (106) took the final match to overtime before losing 9-6 while giving up no extra points and helping Jimtown to a narrow win.

“Going in I knew I had to win to give us (a chance to win) the match,” Mammolenti.

After he was penalized for a fleeing — a call he disagreed with — the Jimmie heavyweight got fired up even more.

“That really made me motivated to take (Yorktown’s Jacob Rhoades) down,” Mammolenti said. “I got up and turned around and shot at him and I don’t think he expected it. Then he was hurt. I just had to ride him out for another three seconds and it was over.”

Mammolenti credits his progression in the sport to all the coaches who train with him in practice. Among those are Paul Bachtel, a state champion for Concord in 197x and a longtime Jimtown assistant.

“If I can do anything on him, I can do anything on anybody,” Mammolenti said.

Also contributing to Jimtown’s 2A runner-up finish were freshman Connor Gimson (126), senior Greden Kelley (132), senior Cole Watson (138), senior John Windowmaker (152), freshman Tyler Norment (160), freshman Aaron Martinez (also at 170) and junior Caleb Fowler (220).

Jimtown followed up the performance in Fort Wayne with a practice filled with a little fun as well as work. With a day off of classes, the Jimmies wore “crazy” singlets and had a dodgeball tournament before being put through drills by assistant coach Anthony Lewis.

“We try to break up the monotony as much as possible,” Lewis said. “We had just had a tough week — mental and physically.”

Lewis, who wrestled for uncle Darrick Snyder at Mishawaka and joined the Jimtown staff in 2012-13 to help the Jimmies place fifth at State Duals and get Nick Crume an individual state championship, said the season is a progression.

In early practices, coaches show wrestlers a large number of moves. As the season goes on, those moves are refined and a wrestler finds the combinations that works best for them. Practices become shorter, but more intense.

The constant is the attack mode.

“We try to push the pace and control the tempo in the match,” Lewis said. “Get the first takedown and then keep lighting the scoreboard up after that.”

Mark Kerrn asks his youth athletes to give it their all during workouts, but he knows that there’s more to life.

“We ask them everyday to touch the sign, just think about wrestling for two hours and then they go back to being a kid,” Mark Kerrn said. “It’s not wrestling 24/7.”

But the dedication needs to be there as Mark’s son will attest.

“You’ve got to love the sport of wrestling,” Kenny Kerrn said. “It’s an intense sport. You can’t dread it.”

After a 3-1 day at the West Noble Super Dual (the loss came against 2015-16 IHSWCA State Duals 1A winner Prairie Heights) on Saturday, Jan. 9, the Jimmies look forward to the Northern Indiana Conference tournament Saturday, Jan. 16 at Mishawaka (the first NIC meet since Jimtown, Bremen, Glenn and New Prairie joined the conference in 2015-16) and then the IHSAA state tournament series.

“The (Elkhart Sectional) is wide open,” Mark Kerrn said of the eight-team field. “There’s about five teams who could win. It just depends who is on that day.”