Patriot wrestling sweeps conference

Gaven Hare was undersized.

He gave up 6 inches in height and 78 pounds to Adams Central’s Brandon Schoeneman.

It looked every bit like David versus Goliath, but Hare didn’t let the fact he came up short both in height and weight get the best of him.

He simply used his quickness to his advantage.

Hare reversed Schoeneman in the final five seconds and pinned the Adams Central senior with three-tenths of a second left on the clock Saturday, putting an emphatic exclamation point on the host Jay County wrestling team’s title in the Allen County Athletic Conference championship.

“I did it,” said Hare, who weighed in at 207 pounds and bumped up to heavyweight (285) for the conference tournament. “He’s a big dude.”

Jay County scored 290 team points to sweep the conference championships after winning the dual title in December. Adams Central, which was the tournament champion last season, finished second with 227.5 points, and South Adams placed third with 182.5.

“They’re working really hard,” said JCHS coach Eric Myers, whose team hosts the sectional tournament Jan. 28 and the regional one week later. “Everything is geared toward this time of year, this tournament time.”

Hare, who won last year at 220 pounds and is the only two-time ACAC champion at Jay County, was one of six Patriots to win titles.

Schoeneman took Hare to the mat in the first period, but the JCHS junior escaped and wrestled the Jet senior to the mat for a 3-2 lead. Hare score another takedown in the third period for a 6-4 advantage, but Schoeneman escaped quickly to make it 6-5 with 55 seconds remaining.

Hare found himself on his back yet again as Schoeneman nabbed a 7-6 lead, but he lost his grip trying to roll Hare, who got loose and jumped on Schoeneman for the reversal before they went out of bounds.

“I was trying initially to get out but he fell to the mat,” Hare said. “We were close to the out of bounds line and I was trying to keep as much of my body in as possible to get two (points). Thank god he gave me the two.”

At the restart, Hare rolled Schoeneman and pinned him before the final buzzer. Hare got up, looked at his coaches and screamed while he flexed in excitement.

“That was awesome,” Myers said. “He had a lot of guts to wrestle like that. He had several points where he was in trouble.”

Kaimen Sanders earned the first championship of the day for the Patriots. The 126-pound junior pinned William Fiechter of Southern Wells in 2 minutes, 51 seconds. Sanders (20-8) received a bye to the semifinal during which he pinned South Adams’ Austin McKibben in 1:33.

Freshman Mason Winner and senior Tyler Leonhard gave the Patriots back-to-back titles at 145 and 152 pounds respectively.

Winner (27-1), who is ranked seventh in the state by IndianaMat, was ahead of Bluffton’s Zach Mounsey 6-0 in the third period before recording the pin in 5:24.

“That is his match,” Myers said. Winner reached the final by knocking off Heritages’ Min Oo by pin in 1:25 during the opener, and he earned an 8-0 major decision over Woodlan’s Zack Zink in the semifinal.

“Mason is good on his feet,” Myers said. “He’s even better on top and he just wears on people. He beats them down and wears on them.”

Leonhard (31-4) was also leading 6-0 ahead of his pin of Adam Central’s Brant Thieme in 3:02. Leonhard — he’s ranked third in the Fort Wayne semi-state — received a bye in the opening round and pinned Xavier Walden of Southern Wells in 1:35 to reach the championship.

“He had a bad day (in December) at the (Connersville) Spartan Classic, and since then he’s wrestling as well as he has ever,” Myers said.

Ivan Hemmelgarn disposed of Southern Wells’ Sam Smith 1:38 into their 170-pound match. Hemmelgarn (31-3) beat Heritage’s Brad Furhmann by pin in 1:15 after his opening-round bye.

Patriot sophomore Chandler Chapman won his 182-pound championship bout over South Adams’ Jordan Heckler by a 4-1 decision.

For South Adams, Michael Rupp (106), Wyatt Miller (113) and Isaiah Baumgartner (195) each won championships. Rupp (20-5) pinned Jay County’s Dylan Racster in 2:35, Miller (24-3) picked up a pin over Adam Central’s Logan Mosser in 2:36 and Baumgartner (25-4) defeated Jay County’s Daniel Ostrowski by an 8-5 decision.