Knights split regular season mat finale and escape unharmed
By Dave Mast
February 18, 2013
381
As the tri-meet between West Holmes, River View and New Philadelphia wound down, and the Knights had beaten the Black Bears 43-28 but fell to the Quakers 47-24, a young Quakers wrestler lay groaning in pain on the mat during one of the nights final two exhibition matches that followed the varsity matches.
He appeared to have dislocated his knee.
The whole goal of tonight is to avoid that very thing, said West Holmes coach Jeff Woods of the evening, which serves as a kind of warm-up for the upcoming Sectional wrestling tournament at Claymont just two days later.
So close to the kick-off of the tournament, teams want to be as healthy as possible heading into the run, so Woods always holds his breath in the last match of the season before tournaments.
Were finishing out the schedule and you just try not to get hurt, said Woods, who already had one big enough scare when All-Ohioan Max Rohskopf came down with a wrist injury during the Ohio Cardinal Conference championships just three days prior.
Rohskopf would sit this evenings affair out, but he said that the injury was nothing that would keep him out of the tournament run.
Opening the tri-meet in Round One with the River View lightweights, the Knights opened a 22-15 advantage over the Black Bears through the 145 pounds bout thanks to a pair of forfeit wins for Cole Woods (Fr., 106 pounds) and Jack Scherer (Sr., 145 pounds) with Lane Darr (Sr., 132 pounds) posting a 15-4 major decision win and Chase Campbell (Soph., 138 pounds) earning a fall win at 3:30. Resuming the dual in Round Three with the Black Bears upper weights, West Holmes saw Caleb Cox (Jr., 152 pounds) scratch out a 4-3 decision victory and Grayson Miller (Jr., 195 pounds) scored a fall triumph at 2:53. Sandwiched in between were two forfeit wins for Tyler McElroy (Jr., 170 pounds) and Aaron Butts (Fr., 182 pounds).
We did okay against River View, Woods said following the meet. We won but we lost some matches we shouldnt have. Thats the one thing Im not happy with. The four forfeits we got definitely were the difference. Take away those points and we wouldve lost.
Facing New Philadelphia for the second time in three weeks (41-27 loss to the Quakers in the Jan. 23 O.H.S.A.A. State Team Duals Tournament Regional Quarterfinals), Woods shuffled his usual line-up hoping to get better match ups against the Quakers. The strategy didnt pay off as the Quakers once again held the upper hand on the Knights.
Of course the biggest detriment may have been going in without Rohskopf and his nearly automatic points.
I was hoping the shuffling we did with the line-up would help, Woods said of the dual with the Quakers. Obviously it didnt. Thats a strong, physical team from top to bottom. We just dont have those type of athletes to match up with them. But, we got a split on the night so its not all bad.
New Philadelphia opened the dual with the 152 pounds through 285 pounds classes in Round Two. The Knights captured only one bout, a Miller fall win at 2:26, allowing the Quakers to open a commanding 26-6 lead with the lightweight classes to meet in Round Three. The Knights could only muster three wins, including a Woods fall at :57, Josiah Allison (Fr., 113 pounds) fall at 2:43 and a Zed Fry (Sr., 126 pounds) forfeit, in the final seven bouts.
Grayson wrestled well tonight, Woods said in noting Millers effort in both matches. He was the only one in the line-up that won both his matches. And, he did it by pinning.
I also thought Chase Campbell did a nice job as a kid coming in pretty new to the sport. Hes coming along quickly. Cole got ahead early and got a pin.
We had a lot of kids wrestling out of their comfort zone in terms of classes tonight. We bumped kids around and gained some experience.
With the split in the tri-meet, the Knights finish 5-3 in dual meets this year.
We could have helped ourselves a little bit tonight in terms of seeding for Sectionals and we will see both of these teams at Sectionals, but the most important thing tonight was to just get through it healthy and we did that.
Thanks to Bret Curren for providing additional information for this story.
