Williams, Waters win; SP grapplers have strong showing in Ben Davis Giant 16

South Putnam freshman Kiefer Vittetow pins his opponent during a qualifying round match at the Giant 16 on Saturday. Vittetow finished the event in third place in his 106-pound class. (Banner Graphic/GRANT WIEMAN)

INDIANAPOLIS -- The South Putnam wrestling team traveled to Ben Davis High School to participate in the Ben Davis Giant 16 wrestling invitational on Saturday morning, the Eagles finished fourth out of 17 teams including two weight class champions.

Seniors Joe Waters (160) and Jacob Williams (220) were champions in their classes and the Eagles had several others place.

"We wrestled well, I think we did well overall," SPHS coach Josh Hendrickson said.

The invitational was divided up into pools of weight classes. Then, it was divided into four round-robin pools of the weight and each wrestler competed against the other three other once.

The pools were then split into groups by which they finished with all the first place finishers in to one pool and so on.

The wrestlers then vied for the best position they could get and South Putnam came out strong. The Eagles had six of their 11 wrestlers place in the top four of their respective classes.

Placing his class were freshman Kiefer Vittetow (106), senior Nick Owen (120), sophomore Jacob Lorimer (126), Waters, freshman Kyle Shaffer (182), senior Rudy Harris (195), Williams and senior Lane Hacker (285).

Waters and Williams both won their weight classes via pins. They both controlled their opponent through the entire match and were crowned champions.

Owen lost both matches in the medal round and placed fourth, Vittetow lost the first match but won the second placing him in third place.

Lorimer and Shaffer both fell in the championship bout and Harris forfeited because of injury.

South Putnam competed well with the bigger schools and finished behind only Ben Davis, Greenburg, and Terre Haute South.

"We had two champions and six in the finals, I feel we wrestled well," Hendrickson said.

Had South Putnam filled a whole team it might have been able to creep up the standings a little bit higher and possibly won the event. The team also felt that Winter Break might have had a factor.

"Christmas break, practice time is limited and our conditioning is always a factor," Hendrickson said. "We need to work on that and the fundamentals."

Team Results
1. Ben Davis 507.0, 2. Greensburg 472.5, 3. Terre Haute South 425.0, 4. South Putnam 380.0, 5. Edgewood 373.0, 6. South Adams 326.0, 7. Eastern Hancock 319.5, 8. Booneville 305.0, 9. Fountain Central 300.5, 10. Bedford North Lawrence 268.5, 11. Mt. Vernon (Fortville) 256.0, 12. Cloverdale 144.0, 13. Attica 123.0, 14. Turkey Run 111.0, 15. Northwest 107.5, 16. Speedway 102.0, 17. Park Tudor 70.0