Jay County tames Bulldogs

Only one girl has beaten Mallory Winner during her high school career. The junior who is ranked first in the 150-pound weight class had the opportunity to face Shelby Life, who is listed as the second-ranked wrestler at 170 by Indianamat.com, for a fourth time Thursday.

Winner made sure that Life would not even up the series.

Winner was one of five athletes from the Jay County High School girls wrestling team to win a match as it took down Centerville 45-12 while the Class 2A No. 3 boys team demolished the visiting Bulldogs 63-15.

“Shelby Life is really solid,” said assistant coach Troy Jacks, who was coaching the girls alongside Chad Chowning and Jon Winner while coach Eric Myers patrolled the boys corner. “She was third in Mallory’s weight class last year so we knew it was going to be a good hard match.”

Winner took her time with Life, engaging in hand fighting for the bulk of the first period before scoring with a slide-by takedown with only 10 seconds left.

She started the second period in the top position and eventually used an arm bar to push Life into a pin at the 2:54 mark.

“So she wrestled the No. 2 ranked girl in the state quite well and came back with a nice pin victory,” Jacks said. “And that set the tone I think for where she stands as the No. 1 girl in her weight class.”

Other victories for the girls (3-0) came from Willow Hardy (125) over Krista Smith by pin in 3 minutes,  10 seconds, Lina Lingo (135) by a 4-2 decision, Emily Manor (140) over Aleah Skinner by pin in 46 seconds and Maleah Parsons (145) over Alyssa Gipson by pin after 2:45.

The boys (1-0) opened up their season strong, winning six out of the eight matches wrestled.

“I thought we wrestled fairly well,” coach Eric Myers said. “We were a little bit rusty for the first match of the season … we’ve got some things to work on but it was nice to get out there.

“We’re working on getting guys into the right weight classes and in shape and that’s pretty much where we’re at right now.”

Myers said that he felt Taye Curtis’ match in the 144 weight class over Oshea Phillips was the highlight of the meet for Jay County. They battled through the first and most of the second period before Curtis pinned Phillips as time expired in the second.

Other Jay County wins came from Cody Rowles (132) over Nick Roberts in 30 seconds, Tony Wood (138) over Kale Creech at 2:20,  Cameron Clark (150) over Quientin Turner after 28 seconds, Jacob Robinson (157) over Preston Matthews in a 3-0 decision and Leighton Brown (175) over Xavier Terrell at 1:35.

“Overall, we wrestled pretty well,” Myers said. “We're just gonna have to refine a few things to be ready for this weekend and next Tuesday in the coming weeks.”

The Patriots won three of four junior varsity matches. All three matches were won by fall with Gabe Ardizzone, Gavin Hambrock and Hayden Ison all coming out victorious.