Pfeifer earns sectional title (01/29/07)

Jay County had just four wrestlers make the semifinal round. And only one of those reached the championship match.

But that sophomore turned in a breakthrough day.

Cameron Pfeifer came up with his first tournament win of the year, defeating Bluffton's Bruce Murray 9-2 to win the championship match at 112 pounds.

"I felt pretty good because I beat (Murray), who I hadn't beaten this year," said Pfeifer. "And I came back in both matches and won by at least five points ...

"I just went out there and did my best."

For the rest of the Patriot team, it was a day of mixed results.

Seven wrestlers advance to the regional round, the most for Jay County since the switch to the current nine-team format in 2002. But it didn't happen in quite the fashion the team expected as five of those squeaked through with fourth-place finishes.

The Patriots' team placing of sixth with 137.5 points was their second-best in the last five seasons behind a fifth-place last year. But it was far short of contending for the runner-up slot they thought they could achieve.

Bellmont ran away with the title as expected, wrestling in 10 of 14 matches and winning eight of those for a total of 333 points. Adams Central scored 190 points to take second place ahead of South Adams (190).

The Patriots were one point behind fifth-place Southern Wells (138.5).

The top two teams will wrestle in the Muncie Central regional Wednesday while the top four individuals in each weight class will return to Jay County Saturday for regional action.

"A lot of kids got out, but as a team we didn't wrestle, I didn't think, to our ability," said JCHS coach James Myers. "I wish I knew the answer. If I knew the answer we'd be winning tournaments.

"I think some of it's got to do with pressure, with some of them being in these situations for the first time."

Being in a championship match was a new experience for Pfeifer, who said he had finished no higher than third in any tournament this year.

Making the finals guaranteed him at least second place, and that's where it looked like he would end up as he trailed 2-0 after the first period. But Pfeifer made his run in the third period after tying the score thanks to a penalty on Murray for an illegal hold.

Pfeifer never let go of the momentum, scoring his first takedown of the match with just 59 seconds to go and leveraging it into a three-point near fall. He went on to a 9-2 victory over Murray as he improved to 30-9 on the year.

In his only other match of the day - he had an opening-round bye and advanced through the quarterfinals with a forfeit - Pfeifer defeated Braden Baer of South Adams 9-4. He outscored Baer 7-2 over the final two periods, and said he felt his conditioning pushed him over the top in both victories.

"Cameron wrestled extremely well," said Myers of his lone champ. "We'd watched his film. He'd watched his film. We thought we were better than (Murray) ... It was just about executing and being smart."

While Pfeifer ended the Jay County day on a high note, the beginning did not go so well. Only three of the other 13 Patriots - Casey Kenney (103), Josh Lochtefeld (119) and Tom Smith (189) - won their quarterfinal matches, leaving everyone else to try to wrestle their way back through the consolation bracket. Then Kenney, Lochtefeld and Smith dropped their semifinal matches.

"Early we just didn't pick up points where we should have picked them up," said Myers.

But the trio which reached the semis and three more teammates worked their way back to reach the consolation finals and advance to the regional round.

Of that group, Kenney was the only one to win his third-place match.

He wrestled a scoreless first period against Bobby Perry of Bluffton, then fell behind 1-0 when Perry managed an escape with 42 seconds remaining in the second period. But Kenney bounced back with a takedown in the final 10 seconds of the period and added an escape in the third for a 3-1 victory.

Skylar Finnerty (135) was the closest among the other five Patriots to pulling out a third-place finish, but couldn't quite hold off Jon Dauterman of Bluffton.

Finnerty had a 4-0 lead in the opening period, but gave up a reversal in the final 15 seconds. Dauterman caught him again with a takedown with 13 seconds remaining in the second period to even the score.

An escape put Finnerty back up 5-4 in the third, but Dauterman came up big late again with a takedown at the 14-second mark to eke out the win.

Jay County lost three other third-place matches by decision with Lochtefeld falling 5-3 to Bluffton's Matt Gerber, Smith going down 4-2 to Alan McClure of Southern Wells and Ben Theurer (130) losing 6-2 to Southern Wells' Rocky Truex. Aaron Miller (140) suffered a pin in 3:36 against Adams Central's James Brazill.

"(When we were successful), we just didn't give up easy points," Myers said. "There were too many times today when we gave up and escape d with 10 to go or gave up a takedown with a couple seconds left. When we wrestled, we wrestled well, but sometimes we just hesitated.[[In-content Ad]]