Happy holidays

PARKER CITY — The Patriots were hoping to be preparing to compete in next weekend’s team state duals.

Having fallen short in the voting for the at-large berths, they headed instead to Friday’s Battle in the Bear Den.

They have now wrapped Christmas in championships.

After winning as hosts of the East Central Indiana Classic on Monday, the Jay County High School boys wrestling team capped the holiday week with another title Friday with a perfect 5-0 record in the tournament at Monroe Central.

The Patriots beat Whiteland 36-28 in the championship match after advancing out of their pool thanks to squeaking out a 36-31 win over North Central. Their other wins in pool competition came by scores of 51-27 over Wabash, 62-10 over Taylor and 84-0 over Wapahani.

“Our guys are pretty bummed, not getting into team state, so they made it their mission to prove some people wrong,” said JCHS coach Eric Myers. “I feel like it’s always good for our guys to wrestle with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder.”

Eighth-ranked Alan Ortiz came up with key turning-point victories in both the Patriots’ final pool match against North Central and the championship match against Whiteland.

Jay County trailed 24-18 in the championship match when Ortiz took the mat against Jason Guevara at 285 pounds. The wrestlers were both cautious, each only scoring an escape in regulation. But Ortiz hit a throw and was able to drag his feet to stay in bounds, getting a takedown in overtime for a 4-1 victory.

“We would have been fighting an uphill battle if Alan hadn’t gotten that win,” said Myers of Ortiz, who went 4-0 in contested matches. “He toughed one out. … That was an exciting match. Alan did a great job for us all day.”

While the Patriots dropped the next match to fall behind by six again, Griffin Byrum (pin), Sylas Wenk (major decision) and Cooper Glassford (technical fall) scored victories to secure the championship.

“A lot of things went right,” said Glassford, who finished off Whiteland’s Dane Holadat with five seconds left in the opening period. “I scored pretty early. I was getting to my turns early. Once I got there, I just kept that aggressive mindset, kept breaking him down … and I got the job done.”

With JCHS (16-4) trailing by 10 points with only four matches to go against North Central, Ortiz came up with a third-period pin of Elijah Watkins. It set up Corbin Lothridge, who ignored a 7-0 deficit and got a third-period pin of his own over Treveon Elmore to push the Patriots into the lead.

Jay County fell behind again when Chris Arnold beat 19th-ranked 113-pounder Griffin Byrum 4-2, but an aggressive Wenk pinned Ethan Smith to finish off a perfect run through pool competition.

“I was trying to be more aggressive. I haven’t been doing too good. I needed to set my record straight,” said Wenk, who attacked by Smith and Whiteland’s Drake DeWitt with ankle picks. “I’m going to keep doing that because it’s going to work way better than what I’ve been doing, playing defensive. …

“It felt good. I was really happy with it, how it was working.”

A.J. Heskett joined Ortiz with a 4-0 record in contested matches at 138 pounds while Wenk went 3-0 at 120.

Finishing with just one loss in contested matches for JCHS were Jacob Robinson (4-1 at 150), A.J. Myers (3-1 at 190) and Jason Landers (144), Lothridge, Byrum and Glassford all at 2-1.