Spahr, Bash finish third, reach semistate (02/09/04)

PORTLAND — Two Jay County wrestlers earned themselves another week of action. A third had his season end much earlier in the day than anyone expected.

Sophomore Bill Spahr (152) and senior Tyler Bash (HVY) each finished in third place at the Jay County regional wrestling tournament Saturday. They advance to this weekend’s New Haven semistate to be held at Fort Wayne’s Memorial Coliseum.

Yorktown and Bellmont each finished with three regional champion wrestlers.

Tyson Bercot (103), Erik Johnson (130) and Stephen Mosier (160) won titles for Yorktown, and Matt Irwin (125), Nathan Scherer (140) and Eric Martin (171) were winners for Bellmont.

South Adams did not get either of its two regional participants on to the semistate round.

“Pretty good,” said a non-chalant Spahr of how it felt to be moving to the next level. “My goal at the beginning of the year was to make it to regional. To make it to semistate is great.”

“It’s a great feeling,” agreed Bash. “To come up and make it to semistate — now we’re just looking to get into the state tournament.”

Sophomore sectional champion Kurtis Hess (135) lost his opening round match, eliminating him from the tournament.

“It was a good day for us,” said Jay County coach James Myers, who advanced only Nick Timmerman to last year’s semistate round. “I’m pleased. We thought we could get all three out. Kurt (Hess) had an unfortunate loss.”

Neither Bash, a sectional runner-up last week, nor Spahr, who was third in the sectional, had an easy road of it either. Both won their first match before losing in the semifinals.

That left them to wrestle in third-place matches in which the winner earned a semistate berth while the loser went home. Both faced familiar opponents.

Bash (33-8) went up against Bellmont’s Darek Colclasure, who he defeated by a 6-5 decision in last week’s sectional semifinal round.

The first two periods in the regional match were similarly close, with Bash leading 2-1 after the first and 4-3 after the second. Colclasure scored an escape 22 seconds in the final period to tie the match at 4-4, but Bash took control from there.

The Jay County senior scored a takedown with 1:08 to go, and then went for the pin. He was unsuccessful in ending the match, but earned three more points for the near fall and shutout Colclasure the rest of the way for a 9-4 victory.

“I just had to concentrate on my moves,” said Bash. “I wrestled him last week, so I knew what he wanted to do.”

Bash opened the day with a first-round pin of Yorktown’s Derrick Parish in 2:23. He lost to eventual regional champion Jason Richards of Muncie Southside 5-1 in the semifinals before advancing with his win over Colclasure.

“(My day) was filled with ups and downs,” said Bash. I came out and won the first one, and I thought I had a good chance against Richards. I lost it, so I knew I had to come back and get the next one. I just got it done.”

Spahr (26-12) also met up with a familiar opponent as he faced Beau Bradtmiller of Norwell in this third-place bout. He defeated Bradtmiller in last week’s third-place match.

He was able to repeat the feat, but not without a struggle.

The sophomore trailed 4-2 midway through the second period before scoring an escape with one second to go. Trailing 4-3 he chose the bottom position to open the third period, hoping for an escape to tie the score or a reversal to win.

Bradtmiller tried to ride him out, and was doing a good job despite being called for stalling with 35 seconds remaining. But again Spahr struck late.

With about 10 seconds left he started to turn the tide, and he finished it off with a reversal just before the buzzer for a 5-4 victory.

In his first match of the day Spahr pinned Muncie Central’s Brock Williamson (26-5) in 4:29. He lost a major decision to Shane Burkhalter of Bellmont in the second round, 13-5.

“(For) my first match I was pretty nervous because I knew it was win or go home,” said Spahr. “I knew I had to win the last one to go to semistate. I knew that would be kind of cool.”

Myers said execution and perseverance were the most important things in the Patriot pair moving on. He hopes they can pull off some surprises next week.

“We told the kids nothing was going to be easy today,” he said. “They had to wrestle hard for six minutes.

“It’s going to be rough. They have to win two matches to get to state. They’re both going to wrestle someone who was a regional runner-up, then they’ll have to wrestle a regional champion to advance. But, both of them are capable.”

Hess (30-7) needed every second of his six minutes to force overtime in his exciting first-round match.

Hess and Winchester’s Shay Sells were tied at 6-6 midway through the final period. Sells seemed to take the match with a takedown with 10 seconds to go, but Hess survived with a reversal with one second left.

The late turn sent the match to overtime, where Sells took in with a takedown midway through the one-minute, sudden-death period.

Both of South Adams’ wrestlers also went out in the first round.

Spencher Haworth (112) opened with a 6-0 loss to Muncie Southside’s Marcus Miller. At 152 pounds Todd Noonan lost his opening-round bout as eventual champion brian Whittington of Randolph Southern pinned him in 2:45.[[In-content Ad]]