WRESTLING SEMISTATE PREVIEW: Carrington, Murphy both one step from state final dream

Friday, February 10, 2023
Greencastle's Chase Carrington and North Putnam's Lucas Murphy (pictured) will attempt to make their way to the IHSAA Wrestling State Finals as they compete in the Evansville Semi-State this Saturday. Carrington will open with North Posey's Wyatt Gamblin at 152 pounds while Murphy starts with Heritage Hill's Jett Goldsberry at 170 pounds.
Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT

Two Putnam County wrestlers will get the chance to make the leap to the IHSAA Wrestling State Finals next week if they can make their way through the field at the Ford Center during this Saturday’s IHSAA Evansville Wrestling Semi-State.

Greencastle’s Chase Carrington will be looking to replicate what older Brach Carrington did two years ago while North Putnam’s Lucas Murphy is entering uncharted territory for the school this weekend.

Carrington was a semistate qualifier as a freshman, having won a regional title at 120 pounds the week before, but was upended by Evansville Central’s Aydan Amento, who would go on to be a state qualifier that year.

Since then, Carrington was unable to advance from the regional as a sophomore before missing last year’s state tournament due to injury.

This year, Carrington won both the sectional and regional titles over Ben Davis’ Gage Eckles and was pleased with how the second meeting went.

“I felt a lot better going into the match as I know what I needed to do on my feet,” Carrington said. “I knew it was going to be a lot better than the sectional final.”

Tiger Cub head coach Kyle Shaffer said the week leading into semistate has been productive in terms of practice and preparation.

“It’s been pretty good,” Shaffer said. “We’ve been working through some situational stuff and, knowing that a lot of his opponents like to ride legs, we’ve been working on that.

“Chase has made a few mistakes in scramble positions and all these matches are on film, so other teams are watching. We’re trying to make sure that we have better angles, high hips and do a little bit better in the scrambles.”

While unbeaten in the tournament this year so far, Carrington said it has not all been smooth sailing through the first two rounds of the postseason and was happy to have several individuals in the wrestling room helping him to work through some of the issues.

“I’ve been working on my feet a lot and working to get out from bottom,” Carrington noted. “Trey (Carrington) has been coming in every day of the week to push me, along with Kyle and whoever else that has come in and is fresh.

“My matches have been close in the postseason and I have gotten thrown, so I’ve been working on defending those better as I have been lucky in those cases.”

Matched up against North Posey’s Wyatt Gamblin (24-16) in the opening round, Carrington said the goal was to get off to a good start and let things flow from there.

“I usually get the first takedown in matches, which makes me feel more comfortable,” Carrington said. “I feel like I can do a lot more if I get the first takedown.

“If that doesn’t happen, I get a little nervous but I work around that.”

The other half of the quarter bracket includes No. 10 Tyce DuPont of Tell City (35-3) and Josiah Green of Columbus North (30-13) with Shaffer expecting the former to be there in the ticket round should Carrington advance.

“DuPont is very good and scoring a lot of points very quickly,” Shaffer said. “He has good hips and is likely a good thrower, so we need to stay out of that, have good shots, elevate the legs and take away his power.

“If (Chase) is up early, we can continue to shoot, steal away some points and get a victory. We’ve told him it’s his match and not to worry about all the other things.

“We’ve been working to keep his focus on his match and if he’s on his game, he can contend for a title.”

Murphy, meanwhile, is the second North Putnam wrestler to reach the Evansville Semi-State but will be the first to make it to the mats for the Cougars.

“It’s awesome,” Murphy said of being the first North Putnam athlete to wrestle at the Evansville Semi-State. “Having coaches that have all been to the semistate is helping me to get ready but, at the end of the day, it’s another match.

“I can’t go in nervous; I have to go out and wrestle my match. My takedowns have been good all year but were slow at the regional, so I’ve worked on that as well as defending shots and legs on bottom.”

Murphy finished fourth at the Mooresville Regional with a 10-8 overtime loss to eventual champion Vincent Tinoco of Decatur Central and a 9-2 loss to Martinsville’s Noah Sumner, though the senior said those matches were out of his mind at this point.

“I’ve put those matches in the past because this week, everyone has to win two matches and wrestle good kids,” Murphy said. “I’ve been working my butt of with our coaches, trying to get extra time in and be ready to go at it.”

Cougar head coach Michael Murphy said Lucas had gotten a decent draw despite being a fourth-place finisher.

“On our side of things, looking at the brackets after coming out of this past weekend, we like the draw,” coach Murphy said. “It’s not easy, as no match at the semistate is, but the practices have gone well.

“The coaches and kids that are still practicing have been rolling with him while we’ve watched a lot of film, looking at strengths and weaknesses that we can take advantage of with Lucas’ strengths, as well as what to work on to get through the first two matches.”

Lucas Murphy will open the day with Heritage Hill’s No. 23 Jett Goldsberry (40-3) with the other half of the quarter bracket featuring Columbus North’s Evan Saevre (13-10) and Jasper’s Victor Peter (26-8).

Coach Murphy said Goldsberry has had a strong debut season to that point but said it also meant it was a new stage for him as well.

“(Goldsberry) has had a successful youth and middle school career and is a great freshman for Heritage Hills,” coach Murphy said. “One thing I can see in doing research is that he hasn’t seen the sort of competition that Lucas has in the sectional and regional.

“He has had a great year but he is a freshman and that’s something we want to take advantage of. Take nothing away from the kid, though, as he’s going to be a great wrestler the next three years.”

With a good chance of advancing if Lucas can win the opener, coach Murphy said the week had been spent prepping almost solely on the match with Goldsberry.

“We’ve been prepping a lot for the first match and while we’ve looked a bit at the other two wrestlers, we know with the draw the first round match is the toughest of the draw,” coach Murphy said. “We need to take the momentum from the first match and go from there.

“There are potentially some very tough matchups down there if he can qualify but our biggest concern is to get through the first match. If he can do that, we can scout the others, come up with a game plan and punch a ticket to next Friday night.”

For the two wrestlers going into Saturday, a lot was riding on the opening two rounds as it will be the last chance for either wrestler to make it to the finals.

Both said beating back the nerves of being on the second-largest stage of the season was important but not looking too far forward was an equally hard challenge as they aim to find one more week on the mats.

“I have to treat Saturday as just another day,” Murphy said. “(Goldsberry) was in sixth grade when I was a freshman; I know he might be a super stud at youth and middle school level but high school is another game.

“I think it’ll be a pretty good match. My goal is to make it to state as no other wrestler has been a state qualifier before, so while it’d be cool to be the first, I can’t think about that right now but just take things one match at a time.”

“I can’t let my nerves get the best of me,” Carrington said. “I have to wrestle the match like it’s any other match.

“It’d be amazing to be a state qualifier. It’s a feeling that everyone wants to feel and I want to achieve that.”

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