North pins East Dogs hold on vs. determined O?s

[cewrestlingfan]

North pins East Dogs hold on vs. determined O?s

BY ANDY PROFFET aproffet@therepublic.com

 

 

 

    Judging the coaches by their words alone doesn?t quite tell the story of Columbus North?s wrestling win over city rival East on Wednesday.

    While North coach Jason Warthan was in some ways disappointed despite his team?s 35-30 victory, East coach Chris Cooper was optimistic after the loss.

    ?I knew we?d really have to wrestle our tail off to even compete with them,? Cooper acknowledged. ?My kids did, they came out and wrestled really well.?

    ?I thought we were a little rusty,? Warthan said. ?I have to think about what I saw. As of right now, I?m a little disappointed in some of our performances. We definitely have some things to work on.?

    With both teams competing in their respective conference tournaments on Saturday, and just one more week left in the regular season, any improvements will have to come quickly.

    The Olympians can build off some strong performances against a program with hopes of a second straight team state finals appearance.

    Arguably the match of the night came at 112 pounds, with former state finalist and North senior Francisco Colon battling East sophomore Baron Rieker.

    Despite a clearly hurting elbow, Colon led Rieker 6-2 with just seconds remaining in the match. Then Rieker scored a 2-point takedown and 3-point near fall to win the match 7-6 and give East an 18-16 lead in the team score.

    ?If you look back at that, I think if we hit that a second earlier we get a fall out of that,? Cooper said. ?(The final score then is) still only 33-35, but it was a big match.

    ?That?s someone who has beat Baron and beat Zach (Rieker) several times. It was good to come out there and get a big win.

    ?I?m not surprised at all. Those guys worked so hard, all my guys worked so hard. They don?t even shock me any more when they?re beating good wrestlers like that.?

    Warthan said that match hurt.

    ?You?ve got to credit (Rieker) for having the never-say-die attitude there,? Warthan said. ?We kind of lost it ourselves, I kind of feel like. We stopped attacking, felt sorry for ourselves, and we don?t know how his elbow feels so we?ll look at that.?

    East?s Zach Rieker followed his brother?s final-second win with a 12-4 victory over Caleb Albertson at 119 pounds to put the O?s ahead 22-16.

    North?s Caden McGaha won 5-0 over Jake Carlile at 125 to cut the score to 22-19, then Keenan Winters? pin of Zane Clark at 130 put North back ahead, 25-22.

    Carson Fleetwood put East back on top, 26-25, with a 10-1 win over Mike Hughes at 135, but Jacob Milenbaugh gave the lead back to North with a pin of Xavier Yheulon at 140.

    North?s Marcus Wadell clinched the victory with a 10-1 win over Caleb Ogle at 145 pounds in the next-to-last match.

    ?They did a great job,? Warthan said of the O?s. ?On paper, I don?t think it should have been that close. So we?d like to have a few of those matches back.

    ?But that does nothing but motivate our guys, and we?ll be a little more ready the next time we see them (in the sectional.)?

    Warthan pointed out the Bull Dogs? tough schedule and how it may have affected his team?s focus.

    ?Our schedule?s been pretty tough here recently. That worried me a little bit as far as being emotionally prepared and physically prepared coming off some hard matches, not having a lot of time to rest,? he said.

    ?We have (Conference Indiana) on Saturday (at Bloomington South), then (New Palestine) on Tuesday, and I was telling the guys, ?You can make an argument out of East, conference and New Pal, which one of those is the toughest?? East because of the rivalry and sectional, conference because it?s your conference, and New Pal is probably, if we have any shot of going back to team state, that?s who we?d have to go through. So three tough ones in a row here.?

    Meanwhile, Cooper thinks his team?s close brush with victory can pay off on Saturday in the Hoosier Hills Conference Meet at Jeffersonville.

    ?If our guys come out and wrestle well ? we have the potential to win it. I just hope these guys realize they have potential to be there if they all show up and wrestle,? Cooper said.