Jay second in duals

Before the season, the Patriots lost one key contributor to injury and another to a transfer.

Having three additional regulars out of the lineup this weekend proved too much to overcome.

The Class 2A No. 1 Jay County High School boys wrestling team was unable to repeat as the Allen County Athletic Conference Duals champion, finishing second as it came up short in a 47-16 loss to Class 1A No. 2 Adams Central.

“I thought we had an outside shot in that match,” said Myers, whose team was without seventh-ranked 150-pounder Cameron Clark, Taye Curtis and Conner Specht. “We’ve got some lineup adjustments that we’re gonna make in the next few weeks. Our lineup is gonna look significantly different by the time we get to the ACAC tournament …”

The Patriots fought off Class 1A No. 5 South Adams in their only close match of the weekend, 41-33. They also beat Woodlan 64-12, Bluffton 66-12 and Southern Wells 72-12 on Saturday after topping Heritage 66-18 Friday night.

Adams Central finished undefeated, with its closest victory coming by a 42-36 score over South Adams on Friday night.

“As the day went on, we wrestled better and better,” said ACHS coach Tony Currie. “I’m pretty pleased with that last performance. Jay County is a formidable opponent.”

Bryce Wenk highlighted the meet for the Patriots (12-2) as he earned his 100th career victory in the match that sewed up the team win over South Adams.

Wenk’s milestone win came with his team leading just 35-33 over the Starfires in the match that turned out to decide the runner-up spot in the conference duals. He left no doubt, picking up Bryan Roll of South Adams and slamming him to the mat just eight seconds into their 215-pound match. He went on to record the victory by pin in 52 seconds.

“It’s pretty awesome,” said Wenk, who joined current teammates Tony Wood and Cody Rowles and became the 12th 100-match winner in JCHS history. 

“It’s pretty hard to get 100 wins. … I’m just really excited to get it.”

And while the team fell short against Adams Central, Wenk came through in a big way.

He trailed most of the way, falling behind 5-4 early in the third period when Wayne McAfee got a quick escape. Wenk struggled to find any offense until the closing moments, converting a high crotch into a takedown with just four seconds left.

“I got a high crotch and I tried to go off to a double,” said Wenk, noting that he was struggling to get shots because of McAfee’s lower body strength. “He didn’t really sprawl on me or anything, so I just took it as far as I could and made two out of it.”

Finishing undefeated on the day for Jay County were Jacob Robinson (150) at 6-0, Wenk at 5-0 and No. 4 Tony Wood (144) and Jason Landers (138) both at 3-0.

The day for Landers included an 11-10 victory over Braxton Krichner of South Adams that helped turn the match in the Patriots’ favor.

“We had some guys step in,” said Myers. “Jason Landers is one that jumps out right away. He won 11-10, huge match for us. We throw him in to his first varsity action and he comes away with a big win for us.”

Also with winning records in contested matches were Cody Rowles (132) at 5-1, Griffin Byrum (113) at 3-1, Juaquin Flores (190) at 4-1 and Alan Ortiz (285), Cooper Glassford (120) and A.J. Heskett (126) all at 3-2.

The match against Adams Central was never in much doubt as the Jets took a 15-0 lead with two pins in the first three matches. The Patriots never closed the gap to fewer than 11 points.

Still, Myers was pleased with the effort in a lot of spots, specifically mentioning the 1-0 loss Flores took against 14th-ranked Trevor Currie and Ortiz’s 4-1 loss to 15th-ranked Zac Wurm.

“I thought we wrestled some really good matches,” said Myers. “Juaqin’s right in there against a state-level guy and, man oh man, Alan Ortiz. It’s hard to say we had some good losses there. It hate good losses. But we wrestled really hard. We had some good things happen.”