by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
AMANDA — Logan Elm traveled to Amanda-Clearcreek for a midweek wrestling dual Wednesday night.
The night ended with only seven weight classes being contested and the Braves won four of those on the way to an overall 45-33 win,
“Based on what we had seen, what head-to-head matches we had would be decent matches. We were missing a couple guys so I wasn’t really going into this thinking team score, I was just thinking head-to-head,” LE coach Jake Daniels said. “We probably could have bumped up our other (106) to 13 and got a win there but Ayden’s (Hudson) been working hard and I wanted to give him a chance to wrestle somebody tougher.”
Amanda-Clearcreek’s Jed Sahr won that 113-pound match with a pin at 5:17.
“Josh Hunter (126 pounds) wrestled (Jacob) Durr who’s a state-ranked kid. That’s a tough match for Josh but that’s what we want,” Daniels added. “Bradyn (Allen) wrestled L’Huiller and L’Huiller is ranked top 10 in the state in D3, so that was a big win for him. Overall, I was pleased with most of our matches.”
Allen pinned L’huiller in 5:01.
“We had to bump a few guys around and it’s a matter of where you can gain an advantage,” A-C coach Curtis Martin said. “Both teams were in there and it was back and forth and all the kids battled hard. You’d expect that from Logan Elm and Amanda-Clearcreek. A lot of our kids know each other. It’s important for them to win against Logan Elm and for the Logan Elm kids, it’s important for them to win against Amanda. I think we saw a lot of hard-fought matches, we just came up short tonight.”
Logan Elm heads to the Miami Trace Invitational Saturday while Amanda-Clearcreek heads to the John Deno Invitational at Athens.
These upcoming competitions are the last step in prepping for the state tournament that begins the final weekend in February.
“This is all take notes and get better at what we’re not good at getting ready for sectionals,” Daniels said. “I think we’ll be pretty solid and fill 10, 11, 12 weights at sectionals and I wouldn’t be surprised if all of them or most of them get out.
“We’re fine tuning stuff, I don’t want them peaking too early. You’ve got to pace them so they peak at the right time.”
Going up against good competition is key to preparing for the tournament.
“We want to wrestle these kids and get beat – that way we get a little motivation for these last four or five weeks. Going into sectionals with an undefeated record isn’t always the best thing,” Daniels said.
“We’re trying to get better every single day,” Martin said. “I was just talking with coach Daniels about some things, we bounce ideas off each other. In the postseason, I want to see Logan Elm and our local schools do well and we want to see each other do well at that time because we represent a larger community at that time.
“We need to heal up, get some injuries taken care of and just get to work and each day try to get better each day. Come the last week in February, we’ll see what we can do.”
Logan Elm 45, Amanda-Clearcreek 33
106 – Dawsen Hudson (LE) forfeit;
113 – Jed Sahr (AC) pin Ayden Hudson 5:17;
120 – Blaine Holzschuh (LE) pin Kolton Conrad 3:04;
126 – Jacob Durr (AC) pin Josh Hunter 1:28;
132 – Nehemiah Hess (LE) pin Aryana Wynkoop 0:16;
138 – Double forfeit;
144 – Bradyn Allen (LE) pin Brandon L’Huiller 5:01;
150 – Peyton Beavers (AC) pin Hunter Schoenborn 3:10;
157 – Wesley Entler (LE) dec. Kyle Kougher 6-0;
165 – Austin Cordle (LE) forfeit;
175 – Bryce Perkins (LE) forfeit;
190 – Brody Steinmetz (AC) forfeit;
215 – Chase Hanna (AC) forfeit;
285 – Conner Green (LE) forfeit.
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