Clark and Floyd County Wrestling Preview (Jff, Fld C, N Albny, CA, C-twn, NW, Pr

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Local HS Wrestling Preview of all Clark and Floyd County Wrestling Teams

http://newsandtribune.com/clarksports/x1468309030/HIGH-SCHOOL-WRESTLING-PREVIEW-Longing-for-glory-days

 

SOUTHERN INDIANA ? The Floyd Central wrestling team?s run of postseason championships has hit a dry spell the past couple of seasons. The Highlanders? last sectional and regional championships came in 2008.

 

But Floyd head coach Brandon Sisson hopes his team is ready to get the program back on top this season.

 

?I have told the guys that I am extremely excited for having such a young team this year,? Sisson said. ?I think our core upperclassmen will do an excellent job helping the younger group mature and wrestle the Floyd Central way. The past few years I have been blessed with good senior numbers, but lacked varsity experience. This year we will be focusing on getting better and getting back to where we have been in the past ? winning sectional, regional and (Hoosier Hills) conference titles.?

 

Two wrestlers who are expected to lead the Highlander charge are seniors Caleb Happel and Andrew Sharp. Happel, who will compete in the 112-pound division, finished runner-up in both the conference meet and the Jeffersonville Sectional last season. Sharp is a three-year starter and has moved up from 215 to 285 pounds this season.

 

Other Floyd wrestlers returning to the starting lineup are junior Eric Foster at 152 and senior Shane Sneed at 160. Foster finished third at the HHC meet last season.

 

Sisson says junior Gus Schoenbaechler, who will wrestle at 140, and a host of sophomores will fill in vacant starting spots.

 

?We are going to be really young this year,? Sisson said. ?Our team is going to have a lot of sophomores starting this year, probably around seven to eight. We are still in the process of trying to figure out where everyone is going to go.?

 

Two formidable tournaments should prepare Floyd for the conference meet and the sectional. They are the Calumet Duals in Northern Indiana and the Mater Dei Classic in Evansville.

 

Sisson says Jeff is the favorite to repeat as sectional champions.

 

?They have won the past two (sectionals) so they have to be,? Sisson said about the Red Devils. ?I think conference is going to be a little tighter. I know that Jennings County is returning a lot of wrestlers, and Columbus East and New Albany have some good young talent coming in as well.?

 

 

 

NEW ALBANY

 

Veteran head coach Eric Burres will rely on two experienced seniors to provide guidance to a youth-laden Bulldog squad. Senior Zach Faith will wrestle at 189, while classmate Matt O?Connell will compete at 160.

 

?I?m looking for two seniors for leadership,? Burres said. ?Our young kids are good, but they need that upperclassman leadership.?

 

New Albany welcomes back two sophomores who were semistate qualifiers from a year ago in Austin Jamison and Tre Marler. But the Bulldogs will be without Marler for the first half of the season due to shoulder surgery. Burres hopes to have Marler, who will wrestle at either 130 or 135, by the HHC meet. Jamison will compete at 135.

 

Other key returning wrestlers for New Albany are junior C.J. Reynolds (152) and sophomores Keenan Ward (125), Chase Laughead (112), C.J. Penny (145) and Ethan Lee (171). Senior Cheyenne Conn, who did not come out for the team last year, returns to the Bulldog mats and will wrestle in the 215-pound division.

 

Burres is expecting contributions from two freshmen in Corey Troutman (130) and Austin Ward (119).

 

Burres expects Jeff and Jennings County to be the top teams in the conference. He also shares Sisson?s sentiments in terms of Jeff being the team to beat at sectional.

 

New Albany will join Floyd at the Mater Dei Classic, and Burres thinks that tournament will get his team ready for the conference and sectional meets.

 

?What I?m looking for is a good showing from our seniors and growth from our young kids,? Burres said. ?I think we have several guys who can do well individually. But from a team standpoint, we are not deep enough. As far as the conference and sectional, we should finish somewhere in the middle.?

 

 

 

PROVIDENCE

 

Head coach Patrick Fleming says his six returning starters have a chance to be successful this year. Those Pioneers are senior Alec Hendershot, juniors Brennan Gregory, Jared Griffith, Jordan Kaelin and Dalton Schell and sophomore Daniel Fernandez.

 

?If they continue to work hard, they each are capable of achieving a lot this year,? Fleming said.

 

Five talented newcomers will show what they are made of in the Providence starting lineup. Three of them are freshmen in Josh Murner, Ben Hauber and Matt Hickey. Sophomores Devan Evanczyk and Cameron Mitchell also will see some time in the starting lineup.

 

?Several of our newcomers this year have shown a lot of potential and will have an immediate impact,? Fleming said. ?They have been working hard every day and I think they will surprise some people this year.?

 

Along with competing in the Mater Dei Classic, the Pioneers also will go to Evansville on Saturday, Dec. 11 to wrestle in the Evansville Memorial Tournament. Fleming thinks both tournaments will prepare the Pioneers for the postseason.

 

?I believe that several of our guys have the potential to do a lot this season,? Fleming said. ?Our goal is to continue to improve throughout the season and prepare for the postseason. As long as they keep putting forth the effort and wrestle like I think they are capable, several of our guys should go far this year.?

 

 

 

NEW WASHINGTON

 

Senior Lane Massingham has the most experience for the youthful Mustangs this season.

 

Massingham won the 135-pound class at last year?s Southern Indiana Wrestling Conference meet along with being a semistate qualifier. Massingham has moved up to 140 this season and had a good start to the 2010-11 campaign last Saturday by finishing second at the Boonville Invitational with a 4-1 record.

 

?Lane demonstrates solid leadership in the practice room by his example,? New Washington head coach Jeremy Campbell said. ?Lane discusses openly his goals and challenges his team to dig in, learn quick and demonstrate toughness every day.?

 

Two Mustang freshmen also were runners-up at Boonville last weekend, who were Yancey Crase at 130 and Brandon Gonzales at 103. Both wrestlers posted 4-1 marks.

 

New Washington?s numbers are growing, as it will place wrestlers in 10 of the 14 weight divisions this season.

 

?We have been trying to add to our team success year after year by bringing more recognition to our program and graduating our middle school wrestlers into the high school program,? Campbell said. ?We are very young, but have a good mix of talent and strong work ethic. With the season just beginning, there is lots to be excited about because our kids are workers and do not complain. We have a wonderful support group and we expect that these young wrestlers will develop into future champions based upon how they conduct themselves during practice.?

 

 

 

CHRISTIAN ACADEMY OF INDIANA

 

The Warriors return an experienced squad of wrestlers this year, including five senior starters. Cory Neel, Ethan Banet, Levi Speth, Caleb Delbridge and Tyler Wall will serve as the team?s core.

 

Additionally, juniors Evan Embry and David Bommerito return, along with sophomore Nate Dunn.

 

In addition to those returning varsity wrestlers, CAI also received an influx of young talent.

 

?We have a large group of freshmen who wrestled for our first middle school program last year,? coach Mike Brown said. ?I think that all of these guys will play a big part in how well we do this year.?

 

Like most coaches, Brown acknowledges that Jeffersonville and Floyd Central will be the power schools in the region, but he likes his squad.

 

?We have a good mix of experienced wrestlers and new blood on the team,? Brown said. ?It will be interesting to see where we fall in the team standings come sectionals.?

 

 

 

CHARLESTOWN

 

The Pirates are looking at a major youth movement this year. The team has five returning starters who will attempt to lead the Charlestown squad to its sixth consecutive Mid-Southern Conference championship.

 

But the returners are a talented bunch. Justin Wolf, Cory Suddeth, Jacob Hall and John Slaten were all semistate qualifiers last year, and Ethan Bowen was a regional qualifier.

 

Beyond those five, it?s hard to tell who will rise to the top of the mix, but Pirate coach Adam Doherty believes sophomore Dakota Bungcayao could be make a big impact in his second year on the team.

 

?He?s a hard worker,? Doherty said of Bungcayao. ?He put a lot of time in during the offseason. He wants to learn, and he had a pretty strong showing last year.?

 

Doherty concedes that youth may be a disadvantage for his team this season, but he remains optimistic.

 

?With our team composition being a lot of younger guys, and our team?s leaders being juniors, you never know what you?re going to get from them in a long season,? Doherty said. ?But hopefully, we should be able to come out with a conference championship again and be competitive with the big schools at sectionals.

 

 

 

JEFFERSONVILLE

 

Unquestionably, the Red Devil are the wrestling team to beat in Southern Indiana.

 

The Jeff squad returns as the defending back-to-back Hoosier Hills Conference and sectional champions, and they look loaded.

 

The rest of the state already seems to know about Jeffersonville. The team is ranked 14th in the state, and has four wrestlers on the top-20 list of individual performers.

 

Renaldo Weekly ? a sectional, regional and two-time Hoosier Hills conference champion who won his class at 140 pounds in the Capitol City Classic ? is ranked sixth in the state. He?s joined by team captain Alonzo Shepherd, who has won state in Greco-Roman and freestyle, Kevim Castro, academic all-state Tre Harbin, 16th state-ranked Brandon Marlin and a host of other talented grapplers.

 

The team has some interesting additions as well, most notably Jordan Schremp, who has spent the last two summers wrestling in Japan and Mongolia.

 

?We seven or eight new kids to varsity in the lineup,? Jeff coach Danny Struck said. ?But they are not new to us. All of our new guys have put tons of off-season tourneys in, and are doing what it takes to improve.?

 

For a team with the pedigree of Jeffersonville, the expectations couldn?t be higher.

 

?Our expectations are the same: to be the most successful version of yourself that you can be, and have the goal of individual and team state,? Struck said. ?No less.?