Perfect SA wins; Jay 3rd

Both local teams walked away from their final meet before Christmas with plenty to be merry about.
South Adams successfully defended its title at the East Central Indiana Classic wrestling tournament, winning for the third consecutive year with 221 points. Starfire senior Josh Ehr, the ECIC champion at 145 pounds, was voted as the event’s most outstanding wrestler, and Todd Batt walked away with the 125-pound crown.
“It’s a big accomplishment,” said Ehr, who has the most wins in SAHS history and is a two-time state qualifier. “My freshman year we were decent, but we’ve come a long way.”
“I feel good. But I think and I hope we’re not even as strong a team as we can be,” added Starfire coach Eric Myers, whose squad is undefeated with wins at the Homestead Invite, Spencer Haworth Memorial Invitational and New Castle Super Duals. “I’m excited because I think that during this lay-off we might actually get stronger as a team.”
Host Jay County had more wrestlers (five) in championship matches than any other school in the 17-team tournament — sophomore Kyle Garringer nabbed the 189-pound title — and moved up one spot from last season to finish in third place with 177 points.
“I think it was a good day by our wrestling team,” said Patriot coach James Myers. “Conner Ray started the day by knocking off the No. 4 seed in the opening round, and then it just kind of went that way the rest of the day. I think we carried a lot of momentum from last weekend’s (fourth-place finish at Twin Lakes).
“I feel great. .... The last couple of weekends I think we’ve wrestled up to our abilities. … Hopefully we’ll come into January and just keep rolling.”
Alexandria scored 208.5 points to finish between the Starfires and Patriots for second place, and Heritage took home three individual titles and placed fourth with 156 points.
South Adams and Jay County squared off in the 145-pound title match where the undefeated Ehr took on Meska, who entered at No. 11 in the state. After nearly two minutes of scoreless wrestling, Ehr scored a takedown with just 13 seconds remaining in the opening period.
Ehr extended his lead to 7-0 with a takedown and near fall in the second period and went on to top Meska, who is now 26-2, by a 14-3 major decision.
“Ehr is a great wrestler,” said James Myers of the Starfire senior who improved to 25-0 and is ranked second in the state. “He’s beaten some of the best kids in the state this year. We thought we had a chance to get him and it just didn’t work out today.”
After defeating Cody Conner of South Adams 3-2 and Jacob Lumpkin of Shenandoah with a pin in 5 minutes, 24 seconds, Garringer (189) earned the Patriots’ lone title of the day. He wrestled Norwell’s Kyle Short to a scoreless first period and then earned an escape 26 seconds into the second and never trailed in a 7-4 victory.
“He’s gutting it out,” said James Myers of Garringer, who is now 20-2. “He’s not been healthy the last couple of weeks, but he’s doing what he can. The matches are a little closer than we’d like, but he’s managed to come out on top the last two weekends. I’m proud of him.”
Batt (125) gave up a first-period takedown in his title match against Alexandria’s Luke Blanton, but dominated the rest of the way. He rolled to a 10-4 lead before pinning Blanton with just 12 seconds left on the clock in the third period.
Eric Pimental (119) dropped his championship match 21-6 to Heritage’s Alex Richman, and L.J. Moser (112) fell 5-0 to undefeated Ben Fiechter of Southern Wells.
“L.J. Moser wrestled a good match, just came up a little short against a kid who worked him over last year so he’s made improvements,” said Eric Myers. “Eric Pimental in his second year wrestling making the finals. I’m very happy with that.
“Todd Batt he lost to (Blanton by one point earlier this year). That was his only loss of the season. For him to go out there and be up 10-4 and then get the pin was awesome.”
Kyle Davidson (140) had the closest of the four championship-round losses for the Patriots, falling 9-2 to Eli Walker of Alexandria. Nick Leonhard (145) suffered an 11-1 major decision defeat to Norwell’s Grayson Smith, and freshman Eric Hemmelgarn (215) gave up a 16-0 technical fall to Winchester’s Andrew Chalfant.
“Hopefully they were learning experiences,” said James Myers. “I think Davidson wrestled well in the finals. The kid from Alexandria is just tough …
“For Hemmelgarn, being a freshman … he had a great day.
“(Leonhard) dominated an undefeated kid from Wes-Del in the semis.”
Dyllan Derrickson (160) scored a reversal in the third period of his consolation match and held on for a 5-4 victory to finish third. Conner Ray upset the No. 4 and 5 seeds in the 103-pound bracket for a fourth-place finish.
Robert Cooper (112) and Jesse Finnerty (130) each finished seventh, and Skyler Sibery (119) placed eighth.[[In-content Ad]]