TC's Smith, Hoerig reach finals in Wendy's Invitational
By Andy Cole
Sports Writer
With a young team running into a brick wall of a schedule in the first few weeks of his first season, Columbian coach Greg Glover found himself putting a lot of faith and a lot of the work in the hands of his seniors.
The Tornadoes have taken their lumps against that wall, but Glover feels as if they showed signs of constructing their own on the first day of the 20th Annual Wendy's Invitational. Not surprisingly at the forefront are his seniors, two of whom -- Jeremy Smith at 215 and Luke Hoerig at 189 -- will be in the semifinals this morning.
"I have to be very happy with how we performed today," Glover said. "We've had the trouble of coming out flat in the first round a lot this season, but I felt like we carried things all the way through today.
"In our first 12 matches, we saw five teams ranked in the top 10 in their division. With a young team I had to worry about our confidence, but the kids have kept at it and have really kept their attitudes up. The young guys we have aren't wrestling like they're intimidated."
Also not surprising were two wins on the first day for Upper Sandusky senior Trey Vince. Last year's Wendy's runner-up and third-place state finisher pinned both of his opponents and will be joined in the semifinals by teammate Tom Karcher at 275.
Huntington's 89 1/2 points lead the way, followed by Toledo Central Catholic with 70. Upper Sandusky is 13th with 29 points, followed by Columbian with 26.
Hoerig pinned both of his opponents Friday, topping Terry Manning of Western Brown in 5:54 and Ben Wright of Whitmer in 4:51. Hoerig takes on Josh Rodden of Miami Trace today. Upper Sandusky's Marc Mays lost a 4-1 decision to Kyle Weyer of Margaretta, and takes on Wright in his first match today.
Smith built a 7-1 lead after two periods on West Carrollton's Josh Hall on the way to a 10-3 decision. Smith will face Mickey Reid of Lancaster in the semifinals.
Vince's victims were Nico Vassel of Lexington (1:21) and Kyle Patrick of Western Brown (3:14). David Bork of Toledo Central Catholic won a pair of decisions Friday, and will be the next to try to knock off Vince.
"The 135-pound weight class at this tournament is very well represented," Upper Sandusky coach Bill Thornton said. "I feel like if (Vince) goes out on top here, it'll be a motivator for him as he tries to win a state title. That's his goal, and he's so driven towards that no matter where we're at or who we're competing against. Everything's going towards that for him.
"So far, we've been a much better dual meet team than we have been a tournament team because we've got a lot of young kids, and it's easier for them to focus when they know they'll have to wrestle one or two matches than it is for tournaments. I felt like we wrestled aggressively today and lost a lot of close matches. For as young as we are, we're being competitive."
Karcher's road to the semifinals included pins of Columbian's Levi Craddolph (2:00) and Corey Modrowski of St. Francis (5:32). Karcher will wrestle Pete Highlander of Margaretta. Craddolph takes on Groveport Madison's Joey McGee in the consolations.
Both Columbian and Upper Sandusky still have wrestlers alive in the consolation rounds at 130, 140, 152,160 and 171.
At 130, Columbian's Brandon Zellers, who pinned Margaretta's Rodney Velliquette in 1:24 in the first round before a second-round loss, faces Ben Forr of Miami Trace today. Upper Sandusky's Mike Mora started his consolation journey by pinning Maysville's Gerald Mercer in 41 seconds, setting up a match with Huntington's James Kelly.
Nate Mathias represents the Tornadoes at 140 against Paul Hanus of St. Francis, and Eric Zamora of Upper Sandusky is slated to wrestle Blake LeMaster of Miami Trace. In the 160-pound class, Josh Weatherholtz of the Rams faces Raysean Taylor of Toledo Central Catholic, while Columbian's Robert Murphy goes up against David Edison of Lexington.
"I feel like we've shown flashes of being good in winning the Madison match and in some of the other things that we've done this season," Glover said. "I think the way we performed here is going to be a good building block for us for the second half of the season and the league tournament."
Upper Sandusky 171-pounder Reid Barth wrestles Maysville's Chris Humphrey today, and the Tornadoes send Matt Frankart to the mat against Billy James of Toledo St. Francis. At 152, Marc Conway of Upper faces Stu Cubbon of St. Francis, with the winner taking on TC's Brandon Gaskins. Gaskins pinned Cyrus Hiles of Maysville in 3:25 in the first round.
Four more Rams have a shot at third through sixth place heading into today's action, as Troy Maynard (112), Brandon Beltran (119), Bobby Kilbride (125) and Jeremy Thiel (145) will be wrestling this morning.
Team standings and semifinal pairings can be found in the scoreboard. The semifinals begin 10 a.m. this morning, and the finals start at 6:30 p.m.