HS WRESTLING Waynedale wins sectionals; Dalton sends 6 to districts
PHOTOS FROM WAYNEDALE ATHLETICS
Waynedale’s wrestling team won the sectional tournament and will send 10 to districts with two alternates.
PHOTO BY LISA McGINTY | LMc Photography
Dalton’s Seth Ryder wrestles Orrville’s Jack Waldron at Dalton’s home meet earlier this month. Both Ryder and Waldron will be competing at the district tournament.
DGKN staff report
Area high school wrestlers are continuing to make their way to the state tournament. Waynedale’s varsity wrestling team won the sectional tournament this past weekend at Northwestern and will be sending 10 to districts with two alternates. Dalton placed third and will be sending six wrestlers to the district tournament, which is Friday and Saturday at Perry in Lake County.
Orrville wrestlers scored 103 points to earn the fourth place spot in the team totals behind Waynedale, South Range and Dalton, according to goredriders.org. The Red Riders will be taking four District qualifiers and one alternate to Perry (Lake): Jack Waldron (175) 2nd place; Paul Hostetler (157) 3rd place; Connor Chereson (138) 4th place; and Tyler Farrell (190) 4th place; Brahm Hostetler (215) 5th (alt).
Last year, Dalton sent eight wrestlers and five of them were seniors. This year, all six are underclassmen: Sam Ediger, Kaden Russell, Bram McCourt, Greyson Siders, Seth Ryder and Cohen Riggenbach.
“These six wrestlers punched their ticket to districts by placing in the top four at the sectional tournament,” Dalton varsity head coach Kenton Lemon said in an email. “I’m extremely excited for these six individuals. … They walked into the sectional tournament in great shape and with a great mindset. From here, we go to the district tournament where a top four finish advances on to the state tournament in Columbus.”
Placers for the Golden Bears were: 106 – Stephen Patterson, 3rd; 113 – Michael Villafranca – 5th (Alternate); 120 – Lance Kearney – 2nd; 126 – Ashton Kauf – 3rd; 132 – Caden Schmeltzer – 1st; 138 – Collin Kearney – 1st; 144 – Cole Lewis – 2nd; 150 – McCrork – 2nd; 157 – Marquel Troyer 5th (Alternate); 165 – Liam Mitten – 3rd; 175 – Jaden Schlabach – 4th; Hwt. – Brayden (BK) Kidd – 1st.
“There were a lot of area kids that wrestled really well and that’s what makes our sectional so much fun,” Lemon wrote. “Our mindset does change at this point to a lot of fine tuning in our technique. We still have to have some good tough practices, we just aren’t grinding quite like we would be in January. We have to keep our conditioning in check, but this week is about focusing and finding ways to win.”
