Jay County repeats as champions

MONROE — Dustin Minnick helped the Patriots remain undefeated in the fourth round against the Starfires.

Tyler Leonhard secured the championship a few hours later.

Leonhard was one of five wrestlers to go undefeated Saturday as the Jay County High School wrestling team repeated as the Allen County Athletic Conference champion after another flawless record in the team dual championships at Adams Central.

“We wrestled pretty well,” said JCHS coach Eric Myers, whose team followed a pair of victories Friday against Woodlan and Heritage by defeating Bluffton, South Adams, Southern Wells and Adams Central on Saturday to claim the title in back-to-back years.

“A lot of it has to do with our guys work really hard,” he said “They think this ACAC dual championships is really important. As long as we can keep our numbers like we do, we’re able to move our team around and put in the best matchups we can because we’re wrestling against teams that don’t have as good as numbers as we do.”

South Adams, which challenged Jay County during their fourth-round matchup by taking a 27-24 lead but suffered four straight losses to fall to the Patriots, finished with a 4-2 record for third place. Host Adams Central was second with a 4-2 record, winning the tiebreaker thanks to a victory over South Adams.

“We definitely have to compete a little better against them,” SAHS coach Jesse Gaskill said of Jay County. “I think there was a lot of guys, if I have to be critical of us, we performed below average.

“We didn’t capitalize where we could have and could have made it an even closer match.”

Leonhard, a senior, earned three pins and won by a 6-0 decision against Southern Wells’ Sam Smith.

Jay County and Adams Central were tied at 21 after nine matches as Leonhard took the mat against Noah Bollenbacher. Leonhard scored a quick takedown and two-point near fall for a 4-0 lead, then gave up an escape. He promptly took Bollenbacher to the mat once again, this time locking in a cradle for a three-point near fall. Moments later he used the cradle for the pin, breaking the tie and giving the Patriots the lead for the remainder of the match.

“(Adams Central) has a tough team,” Myers said. “They were missing a couple of guys, but we wrestled pretty tough. We lost at 113 (pounds) and 120, and we wrestled those kids pretty tough.”

Ivan Hemmelgarn also went 4-0, but only had to wrestle one match as he received three forfeits. He pinned Colin Shaffer of South Adams in 1 minute, 19 seconds.

Gaven Hare, who bounced between the 220 and heavyweight divisions, pinned his Bluffton and Southern Wells opponents while earning a 5-2 decision against South Adams and avenging a loss at sectional to Adams Central’s Nash Brunner with a 3-2 victory.

Daniel Ostrowski was 3-0 thanks to three forfeits, and Thomas Hemmelgarn was 2-0 in the same manner.

Jay County’s large roster size — it has more than 40 competitors — helped it fill out all 14 weight classes whereas other teams didn’t have that luxury. The Patriots benefitted from six forfeits against Bluffton (a 78-6 victory), one versus South Adams (42-27), five from Southern Wells (51-15) and three against Adams Central (51-21).

Carter Mitchell, Davis Anderson, Kaimen Sanders and Dustin Minnick were all 3-1 for the Patriots. Against South Adams’ Keegon Boxell, Minnick was trailing 3-2 after the second period. Unable to get up from the bottom position for most of the third, Minnick reversed Boxell and scored a three-point nearfall in the final 10 seconds for the 7-3 decision.

“That was a lot of fun,” Myers said. “He hasn’t wrestled a lot of varsity at all, but to come back and get a big win like that was great for him.”

After knocking off Bluffton and Southern Wells on Friday, South Adams defeated Woodlan 39-36 to set up the meeting of unbeatens with Jay County. South Adams bounced back from the loss to the Patriots with a commanding win over the other Patriots. South Adams thrashed Heritage 69-9 — the only larger margin of victory was Jay County’s 72-point win over Bluffton.

The Starfires lost their final match of the tournament to Adams Central, 44-24.

“They look out for each other,” Gaskill said of the host Jets. “We didn’t match up well against them and when we did, we didn’t wrestle as good.

“Biggest thing we have to find out, how can we care for each other by not giving up bonus points or a pin, how we’re going to work together at each weight class. (We) have to start looking for opportunities where we can start looking out for each other.”