Gard pins Kauffman for title, joins 4 other Zebras as sectional champs

Val T.

Feb 410 min read

Rochester, Winamac both send 7 to regional, Culver gets 3, Caston advances 2

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

PLYMOUTH — There was a changing of the guard at the Plymouth boys wrestling sectional Saturday.

And there was also a changing of the Gard.

The changing of the guard involved Rochester’s run of four straight sectional titles ending. In fact, they were not even the top RTC area team.

The top area team was Winamac, who finished second behind Warsaw and equaled Rochester’s total of seven regional qualifiers. Rochester, who forfeited the four smallest weight classes, finished third.

The star-studded Zebras finished with five individual champions. No other school had more than three.

Winamac, who forfeited 126 but filled the other 13 weight classes, was making a bid for its first sectional title since 2007. Instead, Warsaw came away with its first sectional title since 2011.

The changing of the Gard was Rochester heavyweight Declan Gard, who worked on his conditioning and wrestling from the bottom position and avenged a loss earlier in the season to Warsaw’s Kameron Kauffman in a team dual Dec. 18. This time, he pinned Kauffman with 14 seconds left for the title.

Kauffman came in ranked No. 7 in the state, per IndianaMat.com, and Gard was No. 12.

The other Rochester individual champions included state-ranked wrestlers Layne Horn (132), Brant Beck (157) and Wyatt Davis (175), and junior Braddock Behling also won a title at 150.

In addition to the five champions, freshman Derek Wortley (190) and junior Mason Hisey (215) also advanced to the regional by finishing in the top four in their weight class.

Wortley took second, and Hisey took third.

Both Horn and Beck won all three of their matches by first-period fall. Horn is 39-0 and ranked No. 4 at 132, according to IndianaMat.com. Beck is 38-0 and ranked No. 2 at 157.

Davis, ranked No. 10, needed less than a minute to pin his first two opponents. He was scheduled to face Winamac’s Austin Attinger in the final, but Attinger had to forfeit due to injury, giving Davis the title.

Rochester coach Tristan Wilson said Horn, Beck and Davis were not challenged.

“The trick with it is no, they’re not tested in the sectional, but we’re not worried about sectionals,” Wilson said. “We’re worried about improving what we’re doing and seeing if it’s working. Sometimes it’s hard against some kids that aren’t as experienced or aren’t that good because they’re not giving us the looks that we really need, but it’s still an opportunity to showcase a lot of stuff that we’re working on, and with all three of them, they really showed a varying amount. They’re not doing the same thing over and over and over. We’re getting to different attacks, different offense. I don’t think Brant’s pinned somebody in a wing and a half (nelson) ever, and he brought that out. So it’s nice that we’ve been working on stuff in the room, and it’s showing.”

Behling improved to 23-4. He started with falls over Caston’s Daulton Oaf and Warsaw’s Enrique Silva before hanging on for a 5-4 win over Plymouth’s Victor Balica in the final. A junior, Behling is a newcomer to both Rochester and high school wrestling.

“Braddock is way more offensive,” Wilson said. “I would say his performance is offensive. And it may not have looked like it in the finals match, but we have some stuff to clean up, but again, he hasn’t wrestled since middle school, so this is just a lot of knocking off years of rust… and it’s hard to wrestle a match when you haven’t in awhile, and all the spotlights are on you and all the training that you do reflects on how you perform. So it’s just a lot of pressure that he’s still working through. But with that being said, his offense is opening up. He has more to go to than just a front headlock.”

Gard and Kauffman were tied 1-1 in the third period before Gard recorded two takedowns and then finished Kauffman by trapping his arms and throwing his shoulders to the mat.

“I think he felt the need to try and throw me, which he is really good at,” Gard said. “But I think I just settled my hips and threw him right to his back.”

Asked if conditioning was a factor, Gard said, “100 percent.” Gard was coming off a 1-0 loss to Peru’s sixth-ranked Trevi Hillman-Conley in the TRC final one week earlier, and he said he needed to improve his conditioning.

“Last week against Trevi, I gassed out in the second period, but I worked all this week really hard on my conditioning,” Gard said. “I made myself tired, and it paid off.”

Wortley pinned his first two opponents to reach the final before losing by fall to Winamac’s Tearson Wolford in the final.

Hisey went 3-1 with three falls on the day and will be making his first regional appearance.

“I would say the entire team as a whole had their best week of practice,” Wilson said. “It comes from the top down. The leaders in the room are starting to bark at them now. And it’s nice now to see.”

In addition to Wolford, the other Winamac individual champion was senior Talen Garner. Garner was the Hoosier North heavyweight champion, but he moved down to 215 for the sectional and won all three of his matches by fall, including a stick of Bremen’s Logan Frederickson in 4:54 for the title.

The sectional title is the first of Garner’s career. He is ranked No. 24. He said he is more experienced at 215 than heavyweight. He and Wolford drill against each other at practice, and Garner said they make each other better.

“I moved up at conference because it was just a team thing,” Garner said. “It was a better chance for the team to score better and maybe win conference, so I just did a little sacrifice for the team and figured I could win.”

Garner has been wrestling for six years. He was also a first-team All-State football player at Winamac.

“I’ve been wrestling for six years,” Garner said. “I’ve loved it. I’ve loved the competition. I love football too. I played up, but wrestling, it’s just an individual thing. There’s no one to blame except for yourself if you lose.”

As for Wolford, he added a sectional title to the conference title he won two weeks earlier. He won by fall over Bremen’s Ethyn Britton in 33 seconds and over Warsaw’s Noah Wilkins in 2:47 to reach the final. Against Wortley, he got a takedown in the first period and then an escape and a takedown after starting in the bottom position to take a 7-0 lead in the second period. He got another takedown before pinning Wortley with 29 seconds left in the match.

“He is even-keeled, and he has been solid the whole year, and when he runs his offense, he’s dangerous,” Winamac coach Kullen Day said of Wolford. “And so he’s been on an even keel the whole season – aggressive and smart. He’s had a lot of matches, so he knows what he’s doing.”

Other Winamac regional qualifiers included Cameron Hilton, who was second at 120; Asher Jones, who was second at 144; Attinger, who was wearing a walking boot on his left leg as he stepped on the podium; Franklin Crawford, who was third at 106; and Rian Shell, who took third at 138.

“That’s a question mark,” Day said when asked if Attinger would be available for the regional. “So he hurt his ankle, so we’re going to wait and see on that. But talk about guts, man. He gutted it out. He got to the finals and had a medical forfeit, of course, but he’s got heart.”

Caston was ninth with 66 points, and Culver was 10th in the 10-team field with 50 points.

Caston’s two regional qualifiers were Braxton Enyart (113) and Ashton Bowyer (138), both of whom finished second.

Enyart, a freshman, pinned Culver Academy’s Marshall Young in 36 seconds in his first match before pinning Winamac’s Aiyden Broeker in the semifinals in 58 seconds. That avenged a loss by fall to Broeker in the Hoosier North two weeks earlier.

Bremen’s Nicholas Slusser pinned Enyart 54 seconds into their final.

Meanwhile, Bowyer lost by technical fall to Plymouth’s Christopher Firebaugh in the final, but that came after a 40-second fall over North Judson’s Orrin Ball and a 14-2 major decision over Winamac’s Shell.

Caston forfeited 106 and 190.

Culver’s top finisher was Theron Carrington, who was the top seed at 165 but lost to Warsaw’s Danny Moon 7-6 on a takedown in the final 10 seconds in the final and took second.

Carrington is hearing impaired, and his mother is his sign language interpreter. His mother sprinted around the mat to stay within her son’s line of sight while listening for coach Mike Buschman’s instructions and relaying them.

Perhaps the biggest fan favorite at the sectional, Carrington won by fall in 14 seconds over Rochester’s Clarence Garrett and 15-3 over Bremen’s Dylan Goff in the semifinals. The crowd roared when Carrington recorded two escapes and a takedown to take a 5-0 lead against Moon.

Coehn Markley (120) and Kyler Weiger (138) both placed fourth in their classes and also earned tickets to the regional.

Culver forfeited eight weight classes, which meant that half of its team advanced.

The regional will be at Rochester at 9 a.m. this Saturday.

PLYMOUTH BOYS WRESTLING SECTIONAL RESULTS: Warsaw 226.5, WINAMAC 178.5, ROCHESTER 166, Bremen 157.5, Plymouth 154, Triton 92, Culver Academy 80.5, North Judson 80, CASTON 66, CULVER 50

WINAMAC INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

106 – Franklin Crawford – third, 113 – Aiyden Broeker – fifth, 120 – Cameron Hilton – second, 126 – forfeit, 132 – Charles Cottrell – DNP, 138 – Rian Shell – third, 144 – Asher Jones – second, 150 – Ryan Bedwell – fifth, 157 – Michael Shidler – DNP, 165 – Cooper Kopka – fifth, 175 – Austin Attinger – second, 190 – Tearson Wolford – champion, 215 – Talen Garner – champion, HWT – Aaron Hardin – DNP

ROCHESTER INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

106 – forfeit, 113 – forfeit, 120 – forfeit, 126 – forfeit, 132 – Layne Horn – champion, 138 – Reed Perry – DNP, 144 – Matthias Field – DNP, 150 – Braddock Behling – champion, 157 – Brant Beck – champion, 165 – Clarence Garrett – DNP, 175 – Wyatt Davis – champion, 190 – Derek Wortley – second, 215 – Mason Hisey – third, HWT – Declan Gard – champion

CASTON INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

106 – forfeit, 113 – Braxton Enyart – second, 120 – Jack Brumett – fifth, 126 – Gage Minniear – sixth, 132 – Elijah Zabel – DNP, 138 – Ashton Bowyer – second, 144 – Caymen Brown – sixth, 150 – Daulton Oaf – DNP, 157 – Gabe Burkett-Rader – sixth, 165 – Landon Rigney – DNP, 175 – Kane Finke – DNP, 190 – forfeit, 215 – Brody Brewer – DNP, HWT – Braxton Mills-Taylor – DNP

CULVER INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

106 – forfeit, 113 – forfeit, 120 – Cohen Markley – fourth, 126 – forfeit, 132 – Kael Buschman – sixth, 138 – Kyler Weiger – fourth, 144 – Dillon Tanner – DNP, 150 – forfeit, 157 – forfeit, 165 – Theron Carrington – second, 175 – forfeit, 190 – forfeit, 215 – Drake Zorich – DNP, HWT – forfeit

PLYMOUTH SECTIONAL INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS

106 – Andrew Hankins (Warsaw), 113 – Nicholas Slusser (Bremen), 120 – Colin Moats (Bremen), 126 – Coen Kraemer (Plymouth), 132 – LAYNE HORN (ROCHESTER), 138 – Christopher Firebaugh (Plymouth), 144 – Braxton White (Plymouth), 150 – BRADDOCK BEHLING (ROCHESTER), 157 – BRANT BECK (ROCHESTER), 165 – Danny Moon (Warsaw), 175 – WYATT DAVIS (ROCHESTER), 190 – TEARSON WOLFORD (WINAMAC), 215 – TALEN GARNER (WINAMAC), HWT – DECLAN GARD (ROCHESTER)

WINAMAC REGIONAL TICKET MATCHES

106 – Franklin Crawford vs. Vince McCoy (South Bend Riley)

120 – Cameron Hilton vs. Roman Marquez (South Bend Riley)

138 – Rian Shell vs. Preston Manzuk (Mishawaka Marian)

144 – Asher Jones vs. Jacob Pennington (Penn)

175 – Austin Attinger vs. Adin Norton (South Bend Riley)

190 – Tearson Wolford vs. Mason Henrich (Mishawaka)

215 – Talen Garner vs. Kaleel Murphy (South Bend St. Joe)

ROCHESTER REGIONAL TICKET MATCHES

132 – Layne Horn vs. Gavin Reed (Mishawaka)

150 – Braddock Behling vs. Jude Burton (Mishawaka Marian)

157 – Brant Beck vs. Delton Swiscz (South Bend Adams)