Redmen come away empty at district wrestling tournament

By BRAD FRANK
Gazette Sports Editor

PHOTOS: Belle­vue wrestling at Mar­ion dis­trict (Sat­ur­day, Feb. 25, 2012)

MARION — Few places can leave some­one feel­ing more empty than after a high school dis­trict wrestling tournament.

For seniors, it is their last shot at qual­i­fy­ing for the state tour­na­ment while often times it is their first shot. That was the case for a pair of Belle­vue Red­men seniors on Sat­ur­day at the Divi­sion II dis­trict wrestling tour­na­ment at Mar­ion County Fairgrounds.

Belle­vue seniors Damon Cheek and Bren­dan Adkin­son each entered Saturday’s com­pe­ti­tion in Mar­ion need­ing one win to qual­ify for the state tour­na­ment. After two wins on Fri­day to put them in the semi­fi­nals, both went 0–2 on Sat­ur­day, end­ing their careers one level shy of state.

Wrestlers in each of the 14 cham­pi­onship bracket finals matches advance to the state tour­na­ment as well as the wrestlers who advance the third-place match in the con­so­la­tion bracket.

Cheek and Adkin­son, who were both in pur­suit of their first career trip to state, both lost matches one round shy of auto­matic state berths in each bracket. Cheek fin­ished sixth in the 132-pound weight class. Adkin­son won the fifth-place match at 170.

“It was a tough day,” Belle­vue coach Paul Zol­man said. “We had some roller coaster matches that could have went either way. We didn’t get the calls today that we may have got­ten on a dif­fer­ent day. We knew com­ing in that there were a lot of good wrestlers who were going to be end­ing their sea­son at this tournament.”

In a semi­fi­nal in the 132-pound weight class, Cheek lost a 6–5 by an ulti­mate tiebreaker to Lima Shawnee’s Colin McDermitt.

“He [Cheek] had to go out there and do every­thing right,” Zol­man said. “Some­times in wrestling you can do every­thing right and still not come away with a win. Unfor­tu­nately, this is one of those instances where that was the case.

“Damon wres­tled one of best matches I’ve ever seen Damon wres­tle. The chips didn’t fall where they needed to fall. It’s tough to see that.”

In Adkinson’s sec­ond match Sat­ur­day, he held a one-point lead in third period against Ken­ton Ridge’s Bobby Mounts but lost by pin at 4:17 to end his bid for state. Adkin­son beat Mounts on Fri­day in a 5–4 decision.

“Every wrestler has his strengths and weak­nesses,” Zol­man said. “This was the sec­ond time Bren­dan wres­tled that boy.

“When guys start see­ing each other mul­ti­ple times, they start fig­ur­ing out your strengths and weak­nesses. He fig­ured out one of his weak­nesses, exploited that weak­nesses and unfor­tu­nately, we were unable to over­come this time.”

Another senior, Bellevue’s Nick Maz­zaro, entered Saturday’s action need­ing three straight wins to qual­ify for state from the con­so­la­tion bracket. He lost his first-round match Fri­day to Norwalk’s Jake Alexan­der, end­ing his senior sea­son with a 33–9 mark.

Red­men senior Anson Hupp was elim­i­nated from the dis­trict tour­na­ment Fri­day fol­low­ing two losses. He fin­ished the 2011-12 sea­son with a 28–22 record.

For under­class­men, com­ing away empty is a source of moti­va­tion to last them the rest of their careers. At the same time, how­ever, they, too, real­ize that they may face the same feel­ing that some seniors felt this weekend.

Belle­vue had two other dis­trict qual­i­fiers, both under­class­men, who didn’t advance from Friday’s action. Junior Ryan Veliz and fresh­man Grant Moyer each went 0–2 in their first dis­trict appearance.

Zol­man labeled the 2011-12 sea­son a pos­i­tive one, say­ing he is happy with where the pro­gram is. He talked about what mes­sage he leaves each wrestler as he exits the post­sea­son and his words to the part­ing seniors.

“I try to be pos­tive with the kids, say­ing “You’re a part of our suc­cess. You added to that,” Zol­man said. “What they did, mak­ing it to the dis­trict tour­na­ment, is def­i­nitely some­thing to be proud of.

“To the upper­class­men, we appre­ci­ate every­thing they’ve done. They’ve poured their hearts out. We appre­ci­ate all their efforts and every­thing they’ve done for us.”

Belle­vue fin­ished the sea­son with a 3–5 record in team matches and fin­ished in the top five of each of its five reg­u­lar sea­son tournaments.

The Red­men fin­ished third at the North­ern Ohio League cham­pi­onships and fifth out of 13 schools at the Shelby sec­tional tournament.

Cheek recorded his 100th career vic­tory on Jan. 11 in a dual at Perkins.

Posted by Brad Frank on Feb 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.