Hemmelgarn wins title

The last time Eric Hemmelgarn faced Kyle Short at home, at the East Central Indiana Classic in December, he lost 8-0.
A lot has changed since then.
The Jay County High School sophomore earned his third straight win over Norwell’s Short on Saturday, earning the Patriots’ only sectional championship.
The team standings were the closest in the 10 years Jay County has hosted the tournament in its current nine-team format.
South Adams walked away with the most champions — a school-record five. And Adams Central had a lead of more than 20 points midway through the meet.
However, the result remained the same.
No. 14 Bellmont eked out its 22nd straight sectional championship scoring 228 points to fight off Adams Central (222) and the Starfires (212).
“I told these guys that that was the first feeling I got at the Jay County sectional that felt like the old Adams Central sectional,” said SAHS coach Eric Myers, who got sectional titles from Sawyer Miller, L.J. Moser, Todd Batt, Isaac Werst and Charlie Hirschy. “It was wild.
“I’ve got one match all day that I thought we maybe could have wrestled better … but I couldn’t ask for a much better day. …
“We wrestled great all day.”
The tightest margin prior to Saturday’s close call came last season, when South Adams trailed Bellmont by 38 points. Four of Bellmont’s titles in the last 10 years came by 100 points or more.
Jay County followed the top three in fourth place with 133.5 points and finished on a high note as Hemmelgarn (285) won its only sectional championship. Norwell was fifth with 125.
“I thought we had moments where we wrestled well,” said JCHS coach James Myers. “I think we can wrestle better than we showed today.
“I thought fourth place was probably where our team was going to fill in. Bellmont, AC, South Adams have quality teams. … And it’s been this way with us and Norwell. We wrestled them in a dual and won on criteria. At the Garrett invite we had to beat Short to finish ahead of Norwell. And it was the case today.
“I think if we had performed a little better in earlier rounds … I think we could have showed a little better.”Hemmelgarn and Short wrestled to a scoreless first period in the 285-pound championship match, and Hemmelgarn chose the down position to start the second. After another scoreless minute, Hemmelgarn was able to break the deadlock when he circled behind Short for a reversal at the 45 second mark.
Short earned an escape midway through the third period to close to within 2-1, but Hemmelgarn fought him off the rest of the way for the one-point win.
“At the Christmas tournament I was frustrated,” said Hemmelgarn of the ECIC. “I don’t know what it was. I got caught in a cradle early. I was just really, really frustrated and I couldn’t think. These last couple of matches I’ve been thinking. I’ve been making him  frustrated now …”
No. 10 Kyle Garringer, who won the 189-pound title in 2011, reached the finals at 195 pounds, but struggled to score against fifth-ranked Ben Baker of Bellmont. After a scoreless first period he, like Hemmelgarn, chose the bottom position to start the second period, but failed to get an escape or reversal.
Baker took control by scoring an escape to start the third period and picked up a late takedown to top Garringer 4-0.
“When we … win the toss and take bottom, we have to score on bottom,” said James Myers. “That was huge. When we win the toss and we go bottom, we expect to get out. We preach that at practice. To beat good guys, we’ve got to get off bottom. That was huge, because if we get off bottom it’s 1-0 and then it’s a different match in that third period.”
No. 9 Miller (106) and Moser (113) dominated their championship matches for South Adams.
Moser grabbed a 4-0 lead over Norwell’s Mitchell Wilson in the first period and pinned him in 2:50. Miller played a game of take down and release with Adams Central’s Andy Oliver on the way to earning a 22-6 technical fall in 4 minutes, 19 seconds.
Seventh-ranked Todd Batt (132) scored the only point of his match against No. 6 Derek Roe of Adams Central with an escape early in the second period for a 1-0 victory. And Charlie Hirschy (130) and Isaac Werst (170) each used second-period reversals and near falls to score victories of 7-3 over Bluffton’s Jon Raugh and 4-2 over Bellmont’s Landon Baker respectively.
Also placing in the top four and advancing for the Patriots were Hunter Gillette (182) in third place and Alex Abbott (106), Zach Metcalf (152) and Nick Leonhard (160) in fourth.
Advancing to the regional along with the champions for South Adams were Eric Pimentel (120) in second, Shea Pyle (152) and Jordan Landers (160) in third and Boaz Marbach (126) and Andrew Beachey (285) in fourth.[[In-content Ad]]