Three more champions

Cody Rowles was up big before getting his pin.

Tony Wood didn’t allow a point in his finals match.

R.J. Heskett won on a rarely seen move.

All three are champions. And they’ll have seven more teammates with them at regional.

A pair of freshman and a senior each won their respective weight classes Saturday as the host Jay County High School wrestling team was the runner-up in the sectional tournament.

“We had some kids that could have wrestled better,” said JCHS coach Eric Myers, whose team sends 10 to the regional tournament the Patriots will also host. “I think we’re right there with Bellmont. We just need to win some of those tight matches.

“We had some guys that set themselves up really well with high placements and we had some guys that made it a little bit tough on themselves for next week.”

Bellmont scored 242 points to win the team title in back-to-back seasons and its 44th in program history. Jay County, which was 2018 champion, scored 221 points for second, and Norwell was a distant third with 180.5 points.

Saturday marked consecutive years in which Jay County has had three individual champions, and the fourth time in the last five years.

Rowles gave the Patriots their first title at 106 pounds, getting a third-period pin of Norwell’s Cayden Smithley in the championship bout. But Rowles, a freshman, had a commanding lead at that point. The youngster scored eight points in the first period on a takedown and a pair of three-point near falls. He got another takedown in each of the next two periods before finishing off Smithley 32 seconds into the third.

“(Smithley) kind of gave him a couple different looks and he was able to adjust to that so that says a lot about Cody,” Myers said. Rowles, who moves to 31-1, received a bye in the first two rounds and pinned Bellmont’s Bryce Rickford 54 seconds into their semifinal match. “If the match doesn’t go exactly the way he planned on it he was able to make some in-match adjustments and you could tell that he did an awesome job in doing that.

“He’s doing a nice job. Pretty dominant so far.”

Wood, another freshman, scored two points in every period for a 6-0 decision over Bluffton’s Austin Lewis in the 120-pound championship. Wood (31-3) stopped a Lewis shot and got a takedown of his own in the first period, scored a reversal in the second and then added two more points with a single-leg takedown in the third.

Like Rowles, Wood got byes to the quarterfinal before disposing of Adams Central’s Joshua Collier in the semifinal in just 49 seconds.

“It gets more and more difficult to wrestle a kid and beat a kid after you see him each week,” Myers said of Wood’s match against Lewis. “Tony made some adjustments ahead of time based on some of the things that worked last week.

“He wrestled a totally different match against them and you could tell they were ready for a few things. Since Tony made those adjustments, he was able to have some success there.”

Rowles and Wood became part of the first father-son duos to win sectional championships in the history of the JCHS wrestling program. Pat Rowles, a 1991 graduate, won the a title in 1989, and Bruce Wood (class of 1989) claimed his first sectional in 1987.

Heskett, a senior, had an emphatic victory for his first career sectional crown. Against Bellmont’s Calvin Faurote in the 138-pound final, Heskett caught Faurote in a spladle near the boundary line, kept the shoulders inside and got the pin.

“It feels good,” said Heskett. “I’ve never advanced to regional let alone win sectional. It feels great.”

Heskett on his rare spladle: “His legs were so far apart and he had a wide base and I just saw it. It was right there. Perfect moment.”

After transferring from Monroe Central, Heskett missed his entire junior year with an elbow injury. Now he’s 27-6.

“He’s got a lot of funky stuff,” Myers said. “Every time he goes out there I feel like I’m going to be entertained. We’re going to see some fireworks. He didn’t disappoint in the finals.”

Freshman Cameron Clark (132) and Blake Pruett (160) were runners-up in their respective weight classes. Clark (23-4) injury defaulted in the final to give his left knee some more time to heal and Pruett (23-8) got pinned by Norwell’s Eli Johnston in the second period.

Taye Curtis (113), Ethan Reiley (126), Cameron Gage (152), Bryce Wenk (182) and Peyton Bennett (285) all placed third and qualified for regional. The top four in each weight class advance.

Ian Ruiz (145), Ryan Herring (170), Ramon Bravo (195) and Conner Specht (220) all had their seasons come to a close. Herring, Bravo and Specht each took fifth.