Chardon hosted the Western Reserve Conference’s final wrestling tournament, which saw Mayfield take home the team crown, with a flurry of Kenston Bombers bringing home individual conference championships.
Wrestling photos click here.
Chardon hosted the Western Reserve Conference’s final wrestling tournament, which saw Mayfield take home the team crown, with a flurry of Kenston Bombers bringing home individual conference championships.
Kenston had four WRC champs plus a second-place finisher.
“Today was about confidence,” Kenston Head Coach Ricky Deubel. “We change our training at this time of year, and I don’t do the same things as I did at the beginning of the year. I kind of taper it off. I don’t do a practice more than an hour and a half, to basically train them to keep their body fresh and their mind fresh as we go into the end of the season.”
Brady and Carter Baran took home individual titles at 144 and 126 respectively, while Teo Triscaro won the 120-pound bout, followed by JJ Strano rounding out the winners for Kenston. Carmen Fratoe took second at 138.
With the WRC tourney set up in a round-robin style — meaning you wrestle everyone in your weight class one time, and the best record through the completion of every bout is then crowned champion — the mindset is all about winning.
That same mindset will also be applied in about two weeks for all OHSAA wrestlers competing in the sectional tournament, so having that taste of “just win” now could be important for the postseason.
“I mean, it’s super important to have that mindset,” explained Strano, a Kenston junior, of the format. “It’s a round robin, so one loss can change everything, and anybody can beat anybody. And with sectionals in a couple weeks, it’s huge to have that mindset now and just gaining confidence going into sectionals knowing I won this weight class, it’ll definitely raise my confidence.”
Brady put together an impressive day at WRCs, going 5-0 with three tech falls and two pins to claim the crown in the 144-pound class.
“It was a good day today,” Brady said. “We’ve been working pretty hard recently in the room, so I was just gonna come in and just make sure I leave no doubt that I was the best out there, and I feel like I carried that into every match just going out and dominating, controlling each match. And I think I did that very well today.”
Of that mindset, Baran added: “It just helps me push towards the end in tough situations, just trusting in knowing that I’m just the better guy. Even though (my opponent) could be ranked higher than me, or he is better than me, I just know that I put in more work to be tougher than him, and I’ll tough it out and beat him in the end.”
With the aforementioned tournament coming up, Baran is honing in on what he needs to address in practice before sectionals.
“I need to tune up on my feet a little bit and just not be as tentative sometimes, getting in my own head — whether a guy is ranked, or who beat him — and I’ve got to just wipe that out and know that I’m the best guy on the mat and just carry that confidence every match.”
The Hilltoppers had a solid day, too, but theirs is a young team and they placed fourth with 166 points.
Chardon’s four second-place finishers were Luke Vucetic (165), Jason Dill (175), Zachary Rosipko (190) and Michael Grandbouche (285).
“I think we’ve got to keep working on what we’ve been working on, that’s coming off the bottom,” Chardon Head Coach Nick Salatino said. “We don’t have guys who are confident about what they’re going to do to get off the bottom. That’s number one. We still have to work on setting up our shots, where we’re trying to find an identity with some guys on how they’re going to get to the legs, and that’s something we’re going to have to keep working on. You know, it’s not automatic for a lot of our guys.”
“I would say we’re getting better,” he added. “We have to get stronger, and that’s a year-long process. That’s something we’ve got to think about for next year.”
But Coach Salatino said he really likes the toughness of freshmen Cole Fletcher (126) and Ayden Fletcher (138 backup), and the improvements seen in freshman Matthew Brickman (144).
“So the future for those guys is going to be bright,” Salatino said of his young team.
Kenston placed third with 178.5 points.
