Champs take different paths

In defending his title, Andy Kohler was hardly challenged.
First-time champion Dallas Dudelston had a more difficult path.
Jay County High School seniors Kohler and Dudelston both won East Central Indiana Classic wrestling championships Tuesday, helping the Patriots to a second-place finish.
Delta won the team title for the third year in a row, totaling 243 points. Jay County tallied 223 points, and Frankton was third with 155.
“We wrestled well in most of our weight classes,” said JCHS coach Eric Myers, whose team competed for five titles and had a dozen wrestlers place in the top eight. “There are a couple we could have done a little bit better. We wrestled above our seeds in a lot of weight classes. I’m happy with that.”
Kohler, who is ranked fourth in the state by IndianaMat, won by forfeit in his 182-pound opening-round match, then needed just 42 seconds to pin Tyler Furnish of Wes-Del. Frankton’s Logan Miller lasted longer, but Kohler pinned him 3 minutes, 4 seconds into the match to reach the championship.
Delta freshman Brady Pease put up little fight too. Kohler, who sits at 21-0 on the season after qualifying for state as a junior, led Pease 10-1 before pinning him 3:28 into the match.
“Kohler was dominant,” Myers said. “He’s got a high-level (of) focus. You wouldn’t think that just by talking to him. He works hard. He looks great right now.”
Kohler said he feels he is in great form too, noting that he had never been undefeated this deep into the season before.
 “I’m in good shape,” he said. “I feel good. I feel like I’m wrestling super good.”
Dudelston, who was a sectional champion as a junior, had never finished first at ECIC, and was happy to claim his first title of the season.
“It feels pretty awesome,” he said.
He was runner up at both the Franklin Invitational Dec. 6 and Twin Lakes Invitational on Saturday.
Unlike Kohler, though, Dudelston was challenged on his way to the 132-pound championship.
“At the beginning, the first couple of matches I wrestled pretty poorly, to be honest,” he said. Dudelston pinned Monroe Central’s Austin Leonhard in 3:06 and Norwell’s Trevor Wilson in 1:44. “Then I got to the (semifinal) round against Delta when I wrestled Noah Richardson. I just wrestled smart and wrestled my match.”
Dudelston pinned him in 1:44.
Top-seeded Devin Maggard of Marion was more of a challenge. Maggard scored a pair of takedowns to lead 4-2 after the first period, and Dudelston escaped in the second to get within one, 4-3.
Starting the third period on top, Dudelston put Maggard in a half Nelson and rolled it into a three-point near fall for a 6-4 advantage with 47 seconds remaining. Maggard escaped, but wasn’t able to score again as Dudelston claimed the title.
“At the beginning I was a bit iffy,” Dudelston said. “He took me down pretty easily in the beginning and I got a little upset about it.
“I kept my head, kept my cool and just kept wrestling. It worked out.”
Some of his teammates weren’t as fortunate in the title matches.
Tyler Leonhard (152), Ivan Hemmelgarn (160) and Gaven Hare (220) all lost in the championship round. TC Perry of Southern Wells beat Leonhard by a 1-0 decision. Hemmelgarn lost a 4-1 decision to Frankton’s Dru Berkebile, who finished fifth in the state last season at 152 as a freshman. Nate Keever of Wes-Del pinned Hare in 59 seconds.
Also placing in the top eight for the Patriots were Tristan Atkins (third – 126), Seth Fugiett (fourth – 120), Mitchel Frasher (fourth – 145), Levi Hummel (fourth – 170), Jacob Ferguson (sixth – 285), Ian Liette (seventh – 106) and Davis Anderson (seventh – 113).