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Greencastle tops county wrestling podium; South Vermillion takes Russ Hesler Invite title
In a hotly-contested pool at the Russ Hesler Invitational, Greencastle returned to the top of the Putnam County wrestling podium, winning the Putnam County title Saturday at McAnally Center.
South Vermillion won the Invitational overall with a 5-0 record with the Tiger Cubs 4-1 in total on the day.
North Putnam finished 3-2 overall and runner-up in the county pool, topping Danville, which also finished 3-2 on the day in the upper bracket pool.
South Putnam finished 3-2 on the day as well, third in the county pool overall while winning both of its lower pool matches over Parke Heritage and Sullivan. Cloverdale finished 0-5 on the day but won at least four matches in each round.
Greencastle opened with a 60-24 win over Cloverdale to start the day, followed by a 42-39 win over South Putnam to set up a dual with defending county champions North Putnam.
The Tiger Cubs got falls from Cayden Blodgett and Cooper Robinson in the final two matches to secure a 41-33 win and the county title as a result.
In the upper pool bouts, Greencastle got a fall from David Olson and a 7-3 decision win from Blodgett to hold off Danville 39-36 but ultimately fell to invite champions South Vermillion in the final 45-30.
“I’m just so proud of our guys,” Greencastle head coach Kyle Shaffer said. “We fought back in all of our matches.
“County came down to every single match against North Putnam. We needed our senior Cooper Robinson to win and he did exactly that, taking his place as a four-time county champ.
“We had a few guys that were hurting, but pushed through to help us win as a team. Cayden, Elijah Frank, Dylan Archer and Tyler Sandusky all had a great day, went undefeated and wrestled their butts off. Anthony Peters, David Olson, Parker Welker and Grayson Linneweber only had one loss and are all hungry to get back on the mat and try to avenge those losses.
“Our coaches made it a point to get kids to come out and they got some key pieces to our team,” Shaffer added. “I owe everything to this coaching staff and the team.”
North Putnam started the day with a narrow 39-33 win over South Putnam before defeating Cloverdale 60-21 but falling short of a hat trick of county titles with the loss to Greencastle.
The Cougars followed with a 54-28 loss to South Vermillion before rallying with late falls from Will Smith and Josh Taylor to beat Danville 42-36 to close out the meet.
“All in all, I think our team wrestled well,” North Putnam head coach Michael Murphy said. “We finished second in the county while having to forfeit two weight classes and it came down to the last match against Greencastle.
“Our one senior, Braden Glaze, was out most of the day with an injury. He was a returning county champion, so we missed him on the mat. We walked away with four county champions in Bryce Glaze at 126 pounds, Wes Murphy at 132 pounds, William Smith at 150 pounds and Caiden Hankins at 165 pounds.
“We had multiple second-place finishers in the county,” Murphy added. “Of our four county champs, three are sophomores and one is a freshman. We have a very young team and we will continue to get better and fill all of our weight classes.”
South Putnam, with five holes in the lineup throughout the event, only allowed three wins in a dual once on the day in the loss to North Putnam, nearly doing enough to topple Greencastle in the following round.
The Eagles swept the remaining bouts with a 48-33 win over Cloverdale, followed by a 48-36 win over Sullivan in which the team did not lose a wrestled match and a 40-34 win over Parke Heritage to finish fifth overall.
“First off, congrats to Greencastle and Coach Shaffer,” South Putnam head coach Antonio Hernandez said. “It was a great team win today for them.
“Secondly, I am incredibly proud of our boys. It’s hard to win when you give up 30 points in forfeits. However, we battled today and were within three points of beating Greencastle and five points from beating North Putnam.
“These losses sting, but they will motivate us,” Hernandez added. “We were already motivated coming into this tournament, but after today I saw a fire in these boys eyes that shows me we will bounce back. The flip finally switched, and we will be a dangerous team moving forward.
“We will see our rivals again in January. We will build from this and we will be ready. We are looking forward to proving ourselves as one of the best in the county. I think everyone there today got a glimpse of the bright future of South Putnam wrestling. I am disappointed for our seniors, but they know the job is not finished and there is still plenty of work to do.”
Cloverdale finished 0-5 on the day with the three losses in the county dual, as well as 60-24 and 58-24 losses to Parke Heritage and Sullivan respectively in the lower pool, but featured a full roster just a year after only having single-digit wrestlers and had five wrestlers end the day with winning records.
Several individuals went 5-0 on the day, including South Putnam’s Noah Redman (106), Dylan Gilley (190), Aiden Beadles (215) and Keenan Mowery-Shields (285), Greencastle’s Elijah Frank (113), Cayden Blodgett (138) and Tyler Sandusky (157) and North Putnam’s Bryce Glaze (126) and Wes Murphy (132).