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15 local wrestlers advance to regional
Fifteen Putnam County wrestlers lived to fight another day after the opening round of the IHSAA wrestling state tournament.
Sectional hosts and state No. 12 Avon dominated the meet, advancing all 14 wrestlers in their ranks en route to the team title. South Putnam finished third, the highest finish for a Putnam County school, with Greencastle seventh, Cloverdale eighth and North Putnam 10th.
The Eagles also advanced the most wrestlers to the Mooresville regional, with six members of the squad moving on to next weekend's event. The Tiger Cubs and Clovers each will send four representatives while the Cougars have one man left in the field.
Four county wrestlers made the finals, with South Putnam providing three through Joe Waters, Rudy Harris and Jacob Williams and Greencastle's Aaron Langdon also making the championship round.
However, all four fell in their final bouts.
Waters fell to Brendon Helm of Avon and Williams lost to Gunnar Larson, also of Avon, for the second time in two weeks. Harris completed a trio of defeats to Oriole wrestlers against Shane Dillehay, losing his first match of the season in the process.
Nick Owen and Kyle Shaffer both placed third for the Eagles while Kieffer Vittetow finished fourth.
South Putnam had three fifth-place finishers in Lane Hacker, Jacob Lorimer and Chris Migliano, who punched the squad into third place in the team standings.
South Putnam coach Josh Hendrickson said the team had to earn every victory and was impressed with the third-place finish.
"Everybody came out and wrestled hard," Hendrickson said. "This is a tough sectional. We didn't come out with any champions but had three in the finals that wrestled tough.
"Those third- and fourth-place matches were big and we had three guys wrestle back to fifth place. Those results were huge."
Hendrickson added that the lack of wins in the finals would hopefully be motivation for next Saturday.
"The seniors that we have want and expect to win," Hendrickson said. "When they don't, it's upsetting for them. I think it will speak a lot to their character if they come back to practice and wrestle hard. I think they'll do that.
"Hopefully we can get a full week of practice in. We still need to practice the basics and go back to the things we do well. We need to attack and continue to get after it all week."
Langdon was on the wrong end of a decision against Ben Davis' Dylan Lydy to claim the highest Tiger Cub finish of the day. Ryley Cook and Trae Carrington both took third-place finishes, while Mark Coghill also advanced as a fourth-place finisher.
Greencastle coach Logan Kuhne said that the squad wanted better results but needed to show off some of the work they had been putting in.
"We were hoping Ryley and Trae would make it to the finals and be in the top two positions," Kuhne said. "Aaron wrestled the number six wrestler in the state at 170 pounds and wrestled well. We're happy to see Mark is going on so we'll have to see what happens next week.
"We want guys to advance. This is a tough sectional and on occasion we got caught. We worked on a lot of things this week and we want to see these guys hit their potential next week."
Cloverdale had four fourth-place finishes, as Jacob Waycott, Wade Warren, Max Secrest and Cody Stout each advanced to next weekend's meet.
Cloverdale coach Christian Frye enjoyed the results and wanted to see more urgency from his squad next week.
"I felt things went great," Frye said. "We had two kids work their way into being alternates and four that will move on, including one fifth seed. It's always exciting when you can extend the season one more week.
"We'll be busy breaking guys down and building them up. We need to do better off the whistle. There was a lot of hesitation when we were on bottom. We need to be the ones to make the moves."
North Putnam's sole survivor was senior Grant Bryan as a fourth-place finisher. Cougar coach Bucky Kramer said that while the results were not dissimilar from last season, the squad itself had made great leaps during the year.
"Today went about how we expected it to go," Kramer said. "Grant wrestled to his seed and Ben Wiatt wrestled above his seed and will advance as an alternate.
"The results were pretty similar to last year with our kids. The season has been tremendously better than last year and we're happy that we're making progress with our program. We've still got work to do, though, to get multiple kids on the podium."
To get Bryan ready for next week, Kramer joked he might have to get himself in on the act.
"Well, I'm going to be wrestling Grant an awful lot," Kramer said with a chuckle. "Actually, Allen Aynes works hard with Grant and does a good job with him. We'll keep Ben in shape, get the middle school wrestling started and get Grant ready to go. Anything can happen at this point."
At Avon
IHSAA Wrestling Sectional
Team Results
Avon 275.50, Brownsburg 197.50, South Putnam 136, Ben Davis 126, Danville 123.50, Cascade 90, Greencastle 77, Cloverdale 62.50, Tri-West 55, North Putnam 39
106 -- No. 18 Nicholas Weaver (BR), Luke Kimmery (A), Ryley Cook (G), Kieffer Vittetow (SP)
113 -- No. 15 Brian Rassbach (A), James Pritchett (BD), Nick Owen (SP), Justin Grahm (TW)
120 -- No. 7 Brock Hudkins (D), Connor Allen (BR), Trae Carrington (G), Bailey Chatterton (A)
126 -- No. 14 Elliott Molloy (D), Quinton Harris (A), Troy Owen (BR), Brady Johnson (BD)
132 -- Nick Etienne (A), Sawyer Blatz (BR), Kyle Smith (D), Austin Manly (CA)
138 -- No. 14 Marcus Miranda (A), Nick Weddle (BD), Saevon Canto (BR), Jacob Waycott (CL)
145 -- No. 15 Zach Batts (CA), Rick Perry (TW), Brandon Gay (BR), Keaton Fainter (A)
152 -- C.J. Dalmer (BR), Casey Fox (CA), David Frank (A), Wade Warren (CL)
160 -- No. 10 Brendon Helm (A), Joe Waters (SP), Kody Caudle (D), Max Secrest (CL)
170 -- No. 6 Dylan Lydy (BD), Aaron Langdon (SP), Lance Meyer (A), Brock Martin (D)
182 -- No. 12 Evan Elmore (A), Stone Neese (BR), Kyle Shaffer (SP), Cody Stout (CL)
195 -- Shane Dillehay (A), No. 8 Rudy Harris (SP), Isaac McCormick (BR), Mark Coghill (G)
220 -- No. 13 Gunnar Larson (A), No. 20 Jacob Williams (SP), Kasha Wilder (BD), Grant Bryan (NP)
285 -- No. 15 Guy Henson (A), No. 4 Norman Oglesby (BD), Lukas Stoutenour (CA), Zach Rumschlag (BR)
Next Meet: The Avon sectional advancers will participate at the Mooresville regional next Saturday.