Patriots first at SA invite (12/01/07)

BERNE - The two area schools were clearly the cream of the crop.

Jay County High School's wrestling team proved to be just a little better than the Starfires Saturday, winning the head-to-head dual 33-31 as it edged the hosts at the South Adams Invitational.

The Patriots had just one other relatively close match in their first year at the tournament, defeated third-place Eastbrook 44-33. In other matches they won 57-24 over Northwestern, 69-9 over Union City and 70-9 against Wayne.

The Starfires finished 4-1.

Junior Casey Kenney led Jay County with a perfect record, and 12 of his teammates also finished the day above .500. Kenney has not been slowed by his bumping up a weight class this year as his 5-0 record at SAHS makes him 13-0 at 112 pounds.

Sha White went 4-1 at 171 pounds and is now 5-1 on the season, and Drake Meska (103), Josh Lochtefeld (125), Caleb Culy (130) and Brad Tipton (160) all went 4-1 as well. Lochtefeld and Culy are both now 11-2.

Cameron Pfeifer, the Patriots' lone semi-state qualifier a year ago, went 2-0 at 130 in his first action of the year, and Seth Drumm (135) and Michael Daniels (152) each won their only match of the day. Others with winning records were Aaron Miller (145), Zach Ainsworth (189) and Kyler Blowers (HWT) all at 3-2, and Ben Theurer (135) at 2-1.

Skyler Finnerty went 2-2 at 140, and Lucas Schmiesing was 2-2 at 152.[[In-content Ad]]