Greencastle secures WCC title

Tuesday, January 19, 2010
North Putnam's Joe Mindiola stares down Cascade's Kalob Heald during the championship match of the 130-weight class at Saturday's West Central Conference. Mindiola placed second on the day.

CLOVERDALE -- They might not have had the most individual champions on the day, but the Greencastle Tiger Cubs exemplified the meaning of the word team. They had 14 wrestlers place and earned the 2010 West Central Conference title Saturday at Cloverdale.

The host Clovers placed third, with North Putnam and South Putnam tied for six place overall.

Winning the championship was great for GHS head coach Matt McComish, but it was how they won it that impressed him.

"We wrestled as a team," he said. "We had 14 kids place and that's what we talked about all week. The freshmen came through for us. Like we said at the beginning of the year, the young guys are going to have to come through if we're going to do anything and they did today. Our upper guys, we only had one champion and they are disappointed, but we learned from it and we got some experience for sectional and we just have to keep working off of it, but we're real happy with the win."

Greencastle had one individual champion on the day when Jesse Ford pinned Cascade's Justin Hemick for the 171-weight class crown. Ford battled back to get the win over his opponent, which his coach pointed out was the culmination of his hard work all season.

"That was a good match. He came back and won -- sucked it up and won. I can't say enough good things about him. He's worked hard all year, but he has to keep the course and keep the same goals and we got to keep working," he said.

Now, McComish and the Tiger Cubs have their eyes leveled on the sectional tournament. Like everything they do, they have a goal for sectional and it's a lofty one, but not one McComish believes is out of the grasp of his team.

"That's great. We're looking forward to sectional," he said. "Our goal, like I said, is to get everybody through to regional. If we wrestle like this, I know during the consolation matches and things like that, some of our guys had bad matches, but as long as we learn from those, I think we have a good chance of getting a lot of guys through to regional."

The Clovers placed third after posting a total of 123.5 and is exactly where head coach Steve Livingston predicted his team would finish leading into the tournament.

"I ran the numbers after our seeding meeting and I knew the best we could get was third, realistically," Livingston acknowledged. "Everybody wants to come in and say we want to be champions, but if you don't have the horsepower for it, then you have to make a realistic goal. My goal coming in was third as a team and we did that, so I was happy with the way we wrestled today

"We came in with only one wrestler unseeded and we only had one wrestler that didn't place. You always hope that you finish at or above your seed; you know you're doing something," he said."

Donnie Helterbrand won the 140-weight class over Speedway's Conrad Nihiser for Cloverdale's only individual champ of the day.

Livingston commented that his team finished close to their seeds and he is now trying to get them to think about positioning. He noted that sometimes wrestlers will begin a tournament fired up, but then have that excitement taper off as the matches wear on. On Saturday, he emphasized the importance of positioning to his team.

"We had a couple of letdowns," Livingston acknowledged. "We had a couple kids seeded and didn't quite make it there. I don't know if we had any huge where our kid was a fourth seed and won the tournament -- that didn't happen for us today. We were pretty consistent. The kids that were picked to get third or fourth, they got third or fourth. The kids that were picked to be in the finals were in the finals.

"For example, at 135 we had the No. 1 seed -- we got second. But we were in position," he continued. "That's what I've told my kids, you have to put yourself in position to win matches and you have to put yourself in position to win tournaments. So, coming in today, and I told me kids the most important round for us was the semi-final round, because we want to put ourselves in position to win the tournament individually."

North Putnam also had a wrestler break into the champion column on Saturday. Tyler Ruble defeated Greencastle's Nick Pingleton for the 103-weight class title.

Although his team, as most others, was lacking in numbers, Cougar head coach Kenny Kerns was pleased with the performance he received from his team. The Cougars place six overall with a total of 77 points.

"We had six wrestlers entered and I got a first, a second, two thirds and a fourth -- five out of six isn't bad at all," he said. "I'd like to have more kids, but you go with the cards that are dealt you. We've got some injuries, some illness -- we had to scratch three wrestlers today -- that hurts. It's a numbers game and we don't have enough numbers."

Kerns spoke about Joe Mindiola and his match at 130. The match was unique in that is seemed to have multiple start and stops, but Mindiola battled Cascade's Kalob Heald hard, before unltimately being defeated. Kerns said he felt his wrestler might have gotten the notice he should have.

"I think they kind of overlooked him a bit and he wrestled a good match," Kerns said. "He kept his composure, sometimes he has the tendency to get excited and forget what he's doing, but he kept his composure pretty well.

"Like I said, our third and fourth place matches were all good. They wrestled well and I'm pleased. Five out of six, I'll take that any time. I'd like it to be 13 out of 14, but like I said, it's what was dealt to us, so we just went with it," he said.

The Eagles also place sixth on the day with 77 points, powered by a first place performance from senior Chris Hurst.

Hurst defeated Greencastle's Will Mobley in the heavyweight division to earn the title.

South Putnam head coach Josh Hendrickson was unavailable after the meet for comment.

Greencastle will host Speedway tonight at 6 p.m., while Cloverdale will travel to Southmont today at 6:30 p.m. North Putnam will host Turkey Run tonight at 6:30 p.m. and South Putnam will travel to Cascade tomorrow at 6 p.m.

At Cloverdale

West Central Conference Meet

1. Greencastle 218, 2. Cascade 183.50, 3. Cloverdale 123.50, 4. Speedway 117, 5. Monrovia 82, 6. North Putnam 77, 7. South Putnam 77

Individual Results

103 -- Ruble (NP) def. Pingleton (GHS) Dec. 6-4

112 -- Macri (CAS) def. Shipp (CHS) Maj. Dec. 13-5

119 -- McIntosh (SW) pin Collins (GHS) 2:14

125 -- Guernsey (CAS) pin Boswell (GHS) :44

130 -- Heald (CAS) def. Mindiola (NP) Maj. Dec. 15-3

135 -- Giza (MON) def. Boldman (CHS) Dec. 10-8

140 -- Helterbrand (CHS) def. Nihiser (SW) Tech. Fall 19-4

145 -- Clements (MON) fall Lewis (GHS) :55

152 -- Blackburn (CAS) fall Gardner (SP) 3:48

160 -- Judkins (SW) def. Vermillion (GHS) Dec. OT 7-4

171 -- Ford (GHS) fall Helmick (CAS) 2:32

189 -- Hill (CAS) def. Hall (CHS) Dec. 4-1

215 -- Faulkenberg (MON) fall Dunn (SW) :32

289 -- Hurst (SP) fall Modley (GHS) 1:05

Next match -- Greencastle will host Speedway tonight at 6 p.m., while Cloverdale will travel to Southmont today at 6:30 p.m. North Putnam will host host Turkey Run tonight at 6:30 p.m. and South Putnam will travel to Cascade tomorrow at 6 p.m.