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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Layne Horn Brant Beck Wyatt Davis
Despite having three individual champions, the Rochester boys wrestling team scored 151 points and finished in fourth place out of 10 teams at the Three Rivers Conference tournament at Maconaquah Saturday.
Maconaquah won the title with 193.5 points, ending a run of four straight Rochester team crowns. The Zebras forfeited the 106, 113, 120 and 126-pound weight classes.
Individual conference champs included junior Layne Horn (132), junior Brant Beck (157) and senior Wyatt Davis (175).
Horn and Davis each won their third individual conference titles while Beck won his second.
Horn, who is 36-0 and ranked No. 4 according to IndianaMat.com, spent only 2:24 on the mat in winning all three of his matches by first-period fall. Southwood’s Elias Poe was dispatched in 20 seconds, Lewis Cass’ Eli Bowyer lasted a minute, and Wabash’s Jaylen Watson lasted 1:04 in the final.
“Layne wrestled well,” Rochester coach Tristan Wilson said. “It is sometimes hard to gauge exactly where he is at due to the competition, but his practices are great. The tough matches are a benefit to him. It’s a great way to see where he is at.”
Beck beat Northfield’s Xavier Roark 17-1 for a technical fall in 1:40 in the quarterfinals, pinned Peru’s Isaiah Korba in 32 seconds in the semifinals, and beat Maconaquah’s Evan Oglesby 25-8 for a technical fall in 3:38 in the final.
He will carry a 35-0 record into the sectional.
“He is hard on himself sometimes, but at the end of the day, he got the tech fall in the second (period),” Wilson said. “We have some positions to clean up, but besides that, he wrestled just fine.”
Davis, who won TRC titles at 113 in 2022 and 150 in 2024, tore through the 175-pound field this time, never seeing the second period. He pinned Wabash’s Philip Palmer in 1:12, Northfield’s Rylan Schultz in 56 seconds and Maconaquah’s Kyle Bockover in 1:33.
“Wyatt Davis is wrestling near his best,” Wilson said. “He had to make scratch weight (Thursday) to certify the weight class and made it with ease. Sometimes he gets in the way of himself, but he had a great showing pinning his way through the TRC.”
In the two biggest weight classes, Mason Hisey finished second at 215, and Declan Gard took second at heavyweight.
Gard, a junior who is ranked No. 12, lost 1-0 to Peru’s Trevi Hillman-Conley in the final. That came after a fall in 1:20 over Wabash’s Trentyn Hernandez and a 3-2 ultimate tiebreaker win over Maconaquah’s Joe Butcher in the semifinals.
Gard is 33-3, but two of his losses are to the sixth-ranked Hillman-Conley. Wilson described Gard’s performance as “not his best… but not his worst.”
“Trevi is a great wrestler who has a ton of experience in the heavyweight weight class,” Wilson said. “Declan is learning how to wrestle these bigger kids and bigger matches. Declan needs to work on separating his hips from his opponent’s hips in bottom. His training partner is (2024 grad and assistant coach) Brady Beck, and I am confident we can fix his bottom wrestling.”
Hisey pinned Wabash’s Carson Amburgey in 2:20 and beat Lewis Cass’ Hunter Sellers 10-0 in the semifinals before losing to Maconaquah’s Austin Rinegeisen 11-0 in the final. Ringeisen, a senior, is undefeated and ranked No. 10, according to IndianaMat.com.
“Mason is wrestling well,” Wilson said. “He is finding his attacks and not wrestling in other kids’ positions. Ringeisen is a tough wrestler, and Mason held his own for most of the match.”
Braddock Behling (150) and Derek Wortley (190) both finished third in their weight classes.
Other Rochester placers included Reed Perry, who took seventh at 138; Matthais Field, who took seventh at 144; and Jesus Velez, who was eighth at 165.
The sectional is 9 a.m. Saturday at Plymouth. Rochester is a four-time defending sectional champion. The top four in each weight class will advance to the Rochester regional on Feb. 8.
TRC BOYS WRESTLING RESULTS: Maconaquah 193.5, Northfield 157, Lewis Cass 155.5, ROCHESTER 151, Peru 146.5, Wabash 115, Manchester 105, Southwood 62.5, Whitko 49, Northwestern 10
ROCHESTER INDIVIDUAL RESULTS
106 – forfeit, 113 – forfeit, 120 – forfeit, 126 – forfeit, 132 – Layne Horn – champion, 138 – Reed Perry – seventh, 144 – Matthias Field – seventh, 150 – Braddock Behling – third, 157 – Brant Beck – champion, 165 – Jesus Velez – eighth, 175 – Wyatt Davis – champion, 190 – Derek Wortley – third, 215 – Mason Hisey – second, HWT – Declan Gard – second
TRC INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS
106 – Ari Schrock (Maconaquah), 113 – Rex Moore (Manchester), 120 – Jordan Owens (Manchester), 126 – Brayden Rice (Northfield), 132 – LAYNE HORN (ROCHESTER), 138 – Tayten Barlow (Northfield), 144 – Corbin Goshert (Wabash), 150 – Eli Gahl (Northfield), 157 – BRANT BECK (ROCHESTER), 165 – Jose Cortes (Manchester), 175 – WYATT DAVIS (ROCHESTER), 190 – Ethan Farnell (Maconaquah), 215 – Austin Ringeisen (Maconaquah), HWT – Trevi Hillman-Conley (Peru)
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