Starfires advance 10 to regional, Jets move seven

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By Clint Anderson

Berne Tri-Weekly News

 

PORTLAND ? South Adams moved a team record five wrestlers into championship matches at the IHSAA Jay County wrestling sectional Saturday, finishing with two champions and ten wrestlers total that will move on to the regional level of the state individual tournament next Saturday in Portland.

 

The Starfires finished second as a team, scoring 215 points, but will not move on in the team tournament as the IHSAA revised its tournament structure to only advance sectional champions into four-team regionals. That one team regional berth went to Bellmont, which scored 299 points for the team title. Adams Central finished third with 182 points.

 

The three Adams County schools accounted for more than half of the wrestlers advancing individually. Bellmont led the way with 12 regional qualifiers;

 

South Adams had 10, and Adams Central moved seven on. That bettered the other six teams by two.

 

South Adams freshman Todd Batt and senior Chase Sprunger scored solid championship round wins against Bellmont opponents.

 

Batt overcame a tumultuous start to score a 5-2 win over Bellmont?s Blake Adams in the 103 pound final. Adams held a 2-0 lead after one period, but Batt controlled the match the rest of the way for the win.

 

?He wrestled a bad first period in the finals and then he wrestled great from there on out,? said South Adams coach Eric Myers. ?He went back to some awful middle school stuff at the beginning there then he started wrestling well at the end. But throwing headlocks from the bottom, I couldn?t believe what was happening.?

 

Batt had pins in his first two matches to reach the finals.

 

Sprunger also pinned his way into the championship round and overcame a 2-1 deficit against Bellmont?s Ryley Hankenson to score a 6-2 victory. It was the first sectional title for Sprunger.

 

?We debated for about a week and a half whether he would wrestle 45 or 52 and he told me at the last second that he was going to go 45. It looks like he made a decent choice,? stated Myers. ?I think that?s the first time he?s been seeded number one and fulfilled his seed too.

 

?I thought he wrestled really well. Hankenson is a tough kid. We had to work with Chase a little bit because he wants to constantly shoot and be the aggressor. I like him being the aggressor, but he?s got to be selective with his shots. He got better at that.?

 

South Adams? other three championship participants all lost. T.J. Burnfield was pinned by Jay County?s Ben Theurer at 140; Jackson Werst lost 7-1 to Bellmont?s No. 1 ranked Billy Baker; and Jim West lost to Bellmont?s Daniel Meyer 3-1 in overtime.

 

?I thought we wrestled real well against Bellmont kids,? said Myers. ?We had some of our better kids matched up against some of their weaker kids, we didn?t hit a whole lot of their studs with the exception of 215 and Chase wrestled a good kid too, but we wrestled real well against Bellmont. I was happy with that.?

 

The Starfires won five of nine matches against Bellmont. South Adams had three third place finishers (Gabe Sprunger at 112, John Striker at 125 and Josh Ehr at 130) and two fourth place finishers (Dustin Hunt at 152 and Nick Taylor at 160). The top four finishers Saturday advance.

 

Adams Central had two championship participants, Jared Schwartz and Trey Schultz, and split those matches.

 

Schultz, who defaulted in the finals of the ACAC tournament last week because of a sore shoulder, won the 171 pound title match against Bellmont?s Grant Melcher 4-1. Schultz has missed chunks of time on a couple of occasions this season for different maladies, but looks to be rounding into form.

 

?(Trey) opened up in the finals against Melcher and wrestled pretty solid. I?m glad he won and I?m glad he gets another week to get stronger and healthier,? said Central coach Doug Schultz.

 

Schwartz pulled an upset in the semi-finals, beating South Adams? Josh Ehr 11-7 ? a state qualifier last season ? before losing by fall in the finals with Southern Wells? Darin Fiechter.

 

?He has really figured it out and things have started clicking,? said Schultz. ?He beat (Jace) German last week and comes in here and beats Ehr this week.

 

He has really figured it out and he?s hungry too. He deserves everything he?s getting and he?s improving every day.?

 

Central?s two consolation winners were Derek Roe at 103 and Matt Kaehr at 140. Zeke Schultz (119), Blake Thieme (125) and Aden Feasel (215) finished fourth for the Jets.

 

 

IHSAA Jay County Wrestling Sectional

Team scores ? Bellmont 299, South Adams 215, Adams Central 182, Jay County 177, Bluffton 149, Southern Wells 129, Blackford 109, Norwell 106, Union City 46.

 

Championship matches

103 ? Todd Batt (SA) d. Blake Adams (Bel) 5-2; 112- Brandon Tucker (N) d. Philip Gerber (Blu) 6-3; 119 ? Casey Kenney (JC) m.d. Brooks Faurote (Bel) 15-2; 125 ? Troy Fiechter (SW) m.d. Will Sheets (Bel) 11-1; 130 ? Darin Fiechter (SW) p. Jared Schwartz (AC) 1:59; 135 ? Matthew Gerber (Blu) p. Ryan Holsten (Blk) 5:06; 140 ? Ben Theurer (JC) p. TJ Burnfield (SA) 2:36; 145 ? Chase Sprunger (SA) d. Ryley Hankenson (Bel) 6-2; 152 ? Tyler Baker (Bel) m.d. Grayson Smith (N) 15-3; 160 ? Trent Busse (Bel) p. Josh Fiechter (Blu) 3:38; 171 ? Trey Schultz (AC) d. Grant Melcher (Bel) 4-1; 189 ? Travis Thatcher (Bel) inj. def. Sha White (JC); 215 ? Billy Baker (Bel) d. Jackson Werst (SA) 7-1; 285 ? Daniel Meyer (Bel) d. Jim West (SA) 3-1 OT.

 

Consolation matches

103 ? Derek Roe (AC) p. Matt Seagraves (JC) 3:34; 112 ? Gabe Sprunger (SA) d. Dewey Melcher (Bel) 7-5; 119 ? Bobby Perry (Blu) p. Zeke Schultz (AC) 1:58; 125 ? John Striker (SA) d. Blake Thieme (AC) 1-0; 130 ? Josh Ehr (SA) d. Carlin Hormann (Bel) 6-1; 135 ? Josh Morris (SW)  d. Cole Sells (UC) 9-8; 140 ? Matt Kaehr (AC) d. Justin Sprow (N) 8-3; 145 ? James Landis (N) p. Levi Jones (SW) 3:34; 152 ? Skyler Finnerty (JC) m.d. Dustin Hunt (SA) 13-0; 160 ? Trent Fuller (Blk) d. Nick Taylor (SA) 3-1; 171 ? Matt Morrissey (Blf) d. Brandon Biberstine (SW) 9-4; 189 ? Levi Mock (Blf) d. Harley Felton (Blk) 9-3; 215 ? Matt James (JC) d. Aden Feasel (AC) 9-7; 285 ? Elijah Justice (Blk) p. Kyler Blowers (JC) 2:55.