Back on track

Cody Rowles hasn’t had the start to the season he was hoping for.

He was sitting under .500 with three wins and four between the opening dual meet with Centerville, the Western Super 6 and a tri-meet with Delta and Yorktown.

The senior wants to get that turned around and has gotten his start.

Rowles won his match as the Class 2A No. 1 Jay County High School boys wrestling team opened up the Allen County Athletic Conference Duals on Friday night with a first-found bye and a 66-18 victory over the Heritage Patriots in the second.

After the first day of duels, three teams remain undefeated. Joining Jay County are Southern Wells who took down Heritage 60-18 and Woodlan 48-32 and Class 1A No. 2 Adams Central who beat South Adams 42-36 and Bluffton 72-11.

“We wrestled alright,” JCHS coach Eric Myers said. “We’re just working on a few things to improve on after last Tuesday. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working to get a little bit more aggressive and wrestle through some situations. Not quite at full strength yet but we’re working on it.”

Rowles, who qualified for the state tournament last year, is someone who hasn’t been wrestling up to his full potential yet this year. Coming into Friday’s match, he was a prime example of someone who was looking to be more aggressive on the mat.

“I just haven’t been wrestling like me,” Rowles said. “I just haven’t gotten in my groove, but I’m starting to get there.

“I think this tournament is when I'm gonna come alive and start actually wrestling, instead of doing whatever I was doing.”

The 132-pound match was the final contest between the teams, where Rowles faced off against Max Mirelez.

The Heritage wrestler quickly made a move on Rowles going for a double-leg takedown, but Rowles avoided it and turned it into a go-behind takedown for early points 15 seconds in. From there, Rowles had total control, eventually pinning Mirelez with 40 seconds remaining.

“I feel good about it,” Rowles said. “I’ve really been struggling on top, so I wanted to get a quick takedown and work on top. I was able to do that and it just felt good to be able to work on that.”

Other victories for Jay County (8-1) came from Jacob Robinson in the 157 weight class and Bryce Wenk out of the 215.

Cody Rowles controls Max Mirelez in the 132-pound match between Jay County and Heritage at the ACAC Duels on Friday. Rowles won the match and hopes it will help lead into a good day Saturday. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Myers was particularly impressed with Robinson, who took down Heritage’s Aaron Baeumler in five seconds and then only needed 29 more seconds for the pin.

After a delay getting to the mat, Wenk squared off with Hunter Deconick. Wenk was able to take Deconick down with ease and racked up points by allowing escapes before getting a near fall for a 14-4 lead. The match was stopped  to clean up some blood.

During that break, he looked to his coaches who told him to go for the pin. He did that by putting Deconick into a hammerlock for the victory with 41 seconds remaining.

Wenk is looking forward to seeing some more competition today as Jay County faces the rest of the ACAC teams.

“I’m ready for tomorrow,” Wenk said. “Heritage ain’t too bad, but we really need some more competition to make us good.”

Jay County opens up today with Class 1A No. 5 South Adams at 9 a.m., who fell to Adams Central before getting a bye in the second round. After that they will face Woodlan who suffered a pair of losses to Bluffton and Adams Central. They follow-up with Bluffton, then Adams Central and close things out against Southern Wells.

Jay County will look to try and ride off of the initial win and carry their success into tomorrow’s opener against a strong Stafires team.

“I think the two best teams are probably South Adams and Adam Central, and that they faced off in the first round and Adams Central won, that one, so that'll be a pretty tough one for us,” Myers said. “It was good to get a win against Heritage to start off. We just need to get everybody going and every point counts.”

Falling in the match were Hayden Ison (150) and Leighton Brown (175). Ison took Preston Moore into the third set, but couldn’t hang on, as he was pinned with 1:06 remaining.

Brown was taken down 30 seconds in by C’Jay Barnett and quickly pinned 14 seconds later.

Connor Specht and Logan Teichman started a match in the 285 weight class, but it was cut short with six seconds left in the first period. Specht had to medically forfeit after hitting his head on a single-leg takedown by Teichman.

The injury adds an extra challenge for Myers’ squad as they aim for a title today, making them one less player close to full strength.

“It's just things that we're going to have to overcome not having our lineup at full strength,” Myers said. “That's what we try to tell the kids all the time. ‘You have to overcome adversity.’

“The greatest thing that you can take out of high school sports is learning life lessons. That's definitely one that we're gonna have to contend with (Saturday).”