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Kevin Christensen |
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| CHRISTENSEN ADVANCES TO THE STATE TOURNAMENT......... |
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Kevin Christensen |
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Record |
Prior to this wrestling season, Greenon Junior Kevin Christensen had built a wrestling resume that would be the envy of just about any other wrestler. In his first two seasons at Greenon, he was a two time state qualifier, winning 38 matches his freshman year and 42 matches his sophomore year to give him an overall record of 80-14. While this is certainly an impressive resume, it still did not meet Kevin's expectations as he did not have a sectional or district title in his portfolio because in each of the past two seasons he finished runner up to Graham wrestlers in the the sectional and district tournaments. As the saying goes, that was then, this is now. Now Kevin has some new additions to add to his resume as he followed up a sectional championship two weeks ago by capturing first place in the Goshen Districts when he pinned Indian Lake's Jarod Klofta in the championship match. The impressive win improved his record for the season to 38-1, it avenged his only loss of the season, and even more importantly it sent him to the State wrestling tournament next weekend in Columbus for a school record third consecutive season as he becomes the only Greenon wrestler in school history to qualify for the tournament 3 times. Ironically, Kevin broke the record that was shared by older brother Sean Christensen (State Qualifer 2001 & 2002) and Shannon WIllits (State Qualifier 1990 & 1991).
While for the most part it was a dominating weekend for Kevin, it also turned out to be a dramatic weekend that carried with it some tense, uncertain moments. The tournament started innocently enough for Kevin as he defeated Marius Monnig of Bellbrook 16-3 and Matt Cunningham of Miami Trace 18-2. Those wins advanced him to the Semi-finals against Justin Blevins (33-4) of Franklin. Blevins was picked by the "Brakeman Report" to finish 9th in the State and it figured to be a tough matchup for Christensen. Blevins breezed into the Semi-finals by defeating two opponents by a combined score of 33-0. Kevin commented that "I kinda thought going in that my Semi-final match (against Blevins) was going to be my toughest match". Kevin's words turned out to be prophetic as he found himself down 2-0 in the first period. Kevin came back to take a 3-2 lead after two periods, but he found himself locked up in a 3-3 score heading into the final 30 seconds of the match. Neither wrestler was able to score the rest of the period, although Kevin appeared to grab a takedown in a wild scramble at the end of the match that resulted in both referee's huddling together to determine if he got the takedown that would have won the match. The referee's determined that it was not a takedown and that decision sent the match into a "sudden death" overtime period. In the overtime period, once again neither wrestler was able to score a point, so the match moved to the "overtime tiebreaker" period. The tiebreaker is a simple concept - there is one tiebreaker period that lasts 30 seconds and one of the wrestler's is placed in the down position and if he escapes within 30 seconds, then he wins the match. If, on the other hand, the top wrestler can maintain control of the bottom wrestler for 30 seconds, then the top wrestler would be awarded the win. The "up or down" starting position is determined by a coin flip and most wrestler's choose down in that situation. Kevin's opponent won the coin flip and chose down. It turned out to be a bad choice. "I was actually happy he took down" were the words from Kevin "I just held onto his leg". While it turned out that Kevin was able to hold onto his opponent for the 30 seconds, there was still drama at the end of the overtime period as his opponent rolled him towards the out of bounds area for a reversal just as time expired and once again the referee's huddled to determine if Christensen's opponent had escaped before time expired. They ruled that Kevin held on and that enabled him to escape with a dramatic 4-3 double overtime victory. That win guaranteed him a State tournament spot and when Christensen pinned Jarod Klofta in the championship match that earned him the # 1 Seed in the State tournament.
Greenon Freshman Garrett Lay also wrestled in the district tournament for Greenon and continued his post season success as he started the tournament by defeating Nick Samad of New Richmond 15-0 before losing his second match by pin against Kyle Quickle (24-4) of Hillsboro. Garrett avoided elimination in his next match as he bounced back from his loss by pinning Terry Shilling of Edgewood. That win matched him up against Theo Hildenbrand (27-10) of Franklin. Garrett fell behind 2-0 in the first period but then dominated the rest of the match and managed to pull within a 4-2 score as his opponent was penalized a point for stalling. As the match was winding down, Garrett's opponent was again penalized a point for stalling to make the score 4-3. Although Garrett was clearly the agressor for most of the match, unfortunately for him time ran out before he could take down his opponent and he lost the tough luck match by a final score of 4-3. While the loss ended Garrett's season, the two wins he obtained at the District tournament enabled him to reach the 30 win milestone as the finished the season with a record of 30-7.
Below are the results for Garrett Lay and Kevin Christensen for the Goshen District Tournament:
Garrett Lay - 103 lb weight class (Did Not Place)
Match 1: Win by tech fall over Nick Samad (24-13) of New Richmond.
Match 2: Lose by pin to Kyle Quickle (24-4) of Hillsboro.
Match 3: Win by pin over Terry Shilling (17-15) of Edgewood.
Match 4: Lose by decision 4-3 to Theo Hildenbrand (27-10) of Franklin.
Kevin Christensen - 130 lb weight class (1st Place)
Match 1: Win by major decision 16-3 over Marius Monnig of Bellbrook.
Match 2: Win by tech fall 18-2 over Matt Cunningham (28-7) of Miami Trace.
Match 3: Win by decision 4-3 (Double Overtime) over Justin Blevins (33-4) of Franklin.
Match 4: Win by pin over Jarod Klofta (29-6) of Indian Lake.
KNIGHTS NOTES
- This is the third year in a row that a Greenon Freshman has qualified for the District Meet. The three freshman to qualify were Kevin Christensen (2003), Casey Wells (2004) and Garrett Lay (2005).
- Kevin Christensen is 4-4 in the State Meet the past two years. Each time he went to the State meet as a # 2 seed. This season he will be going as the # 1 seed for the first time.
- Kevin Christensen's all time record is now 118-15. This is the most wins for a wrestler in school history, breaking the all time record of 109 wins.
- This is the 5th consecutive season that Greenon has sent at least one wrestler to the State meet.
- Including this season, Greenon has sent wrestlers to the state 15 times. Nine of those times have come in the last 5 years.
- The best finish for a Greenon wrestler at the State meet is 4th place. Dave Helton did it in 1972 in the Heavyweight class and Andy Folck did it in 1982 in the 145 lb weight class.
