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Mater Dei, Reitz dominate Castle wrestling regional


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http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/feb/04/no-headline---ev_05wrestlingregional/

 

PARADISE, Ind. ? By the end of the Castle Regional Wrestling Tournament on Saturday, normality prevailed in the area wrestling world.

No. 3 Mater Dei had survived a scare from Reitz in the "unofficial" team scoring and advanced all 13 wrestlers it brought with top three finishes.

That set the Wildcats up to make even more noise next Saturday as top-four finishers advance to the Evansville Semistate at the Ford Center.

But no team started faster or better than the No. 10 Panthers ? make that the "Pinners" ? on Saturday morning.

 

All nine wrestlers Reitz brought advanced with pins in the quarterfinals to insure it a school-record number in the semistate.

"We came with nine and left with nine," said Reitz coach Scott Ferguson. "Through the second round we'd won 17 of 18 with 15 of those by pin and put 89 percent of our kids in the finals.

 

"Whether or not we came out on the short end of the score (unofficially it was Mater Dei 187.5, Reitz 162.5), it feels like we won."

Reitz had led Mater Dei after the semifinals (145-140) by the "big meet" scoring system that will determine a regional champ next year as the dual-meet method ends in 2011.

 

"We're happy to advance everybody," said Mater Dei coach Greg Schaefer. "We can see areas where we could have performed better, but that's OK when everybody is moving on. They've got next week to bounce back." The Wildcats started that trend early when the seven wrestlers who lost in the semifinals all came back to finish third. Then Mater Dei took four of its six finals that began when freshman Alex Johnson shook off an 8-0 deficit to Reitz sophomore Josh Davis to win by pin in 3:56 at 113 pounds.

 

Other titles from the Wildcats came when both of their undefeated seniors ? Dalton Brandenstein at 182 and Dane Maurer at 195 ? stayed perfect and Nathan Wright won at 285.

 

Reitz continued its early hot streak at the start of the finals when junior 106 Damon Kuhn topped previously undefeated Castle sophomore Jacob Brown 3-1 in overtime to win his second straight regional.

 

"All that momentum we had early was crazy," said Kuhn. "I think it helped carry over into the finals. Brown got me the last two times we wrestled (Kuhn's only two losses), so I didn't have anything to lose this time and just went after it."

 

At 120, in a battle between defending regional champions, Castle junior Luke Welch beat Reitz junior Blake Johns 10-6.

 

"It's been different this year," said Welch, who remained undefeated at 40-0. "You want to win here because it sets you up for next week, but even that's still about the ultimate goal, to get to the top of the podium at state."

 

At 126, Reitz senior Gideon Vanhook avenged his sectional finals loss to Memorial junior Logan Wedding by 6-0 decision.

 

"It was a goal for all of us today to prove that we're doing what we're supposed to do in the (wrestling) room," said Vanhook. "We wanted to make the statement today that the guys we had left were strong."

 

Another Reitz winner, senior 152 Blake Rueger, took his third straight regional title with a first-period technical fall.

 

"I've never done that," he said. "But I think this was all a carry-over from our first round, which was really exciting. It definitely gave us momentum."

 

Castle added a second champion Saturday when senior Austin Warren won at 170 and Heritage Hills had two winners when junior Jared Boehm defended a regional title at 220 and senior 160 Swade Oser moved to 51-0.

 

Other winners were Central sophomore Brenden Kelly at 138 and Memorial senior Brian Hayhurst at 145.

 

 

 

 

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