EHS wrestlers come up 5 points short in bid for Regional Title
By Michael Ashford
Monday, February 19, 2007
In the final round of Saturday’s Class 5A Regional wrestling tournament at Emporia High, the EHS wrestling team ran into a green-and-gold buzz saw, and its name was Bishop Carroll.
The Spartans entered the final round of the day with a 29-point advantage in team points over the defending 5A State champion Carroll Eagles, and the Spartans — like they had a week earlier at the Centennial League championships — had sent nine wrestlers to the final rounds, while Carroll had just six. Not only that, but Emporia and Carroll would go head-to-head in four title matches.
But the Spartans dropped all four of those matches to Carroll opponents, and Emporia came away with just two Regional champions out of the nine finalists in senior James Sparks at 215 pounds and junior Josh Rodriguez at 285 pounds. All six of Carroll’s finalists won their title bouts, and the result was a 184-179 victory over Emporia for the Regional team title.
“They’re not undefeated this year for nothing,” EHS coach Greg Bucckbee said of Carroll’s unblemished record this season. “We just needed one more win and that would have iced it for us, but we didn’t get it. But you know, we still wrestled well.”
Though the Spartans were upset that they had seen their big lead slip away late, the squad was uplifted by the fact that it sent 11 wrestlers to next weekend’s State tournament in Wichita.
“It’s frustrating, but we know we can compete with them (Carroll),” senior Bryce Shaver said. “We held them off until the last round. We would have liked to get the team title, but getting 11 to State is good too. It’s real exciting.”
While it took until the final two bouts of the day for Emporia to earn the two individual Regional titles, the championship tilts involving Sparks and Rodriguez were two of the more hotly contested matches of the tournament.
Sparks went against Arkansas City’s Clinton Bruce, and it was clear from the start that Bruce planned to stay on the defensive and let Sparks come to him. Bruce constantly backed away from Sparks, drawing the ire of the EHS coaches, Sparks’ teammates and the fans in the stands who wanted a stalling penalty called.
“I tried working my moves from my feet, and he kept backing up from me,” Sparks said. “I wanted to go for a throw and he was backing up, so I couldn’t throw it. I was just getting frustrated because I couldn’t do anything because he kept backing up.”
Neither wrestler scored until Sparks got free from Bruce at the start of the second period for an escape to go up, 1-0. But with Bruce continuing to back away from much contact, Sparks could never get a grasp on the match.
Bruce tied it at 1 in the third period with an escape of his own, and that’s how the third period came to a close.
In the overtime, with an obviously frustrated Sparks seeking to end the match, he finally got a shot in on Bruce and took advantage of the opportunity, scoring a takedown just before the buzzer to win the match by a 3-1 decision.
“I’m excited about winning Regionals, but not about the way I wrestled,” Sparks said. “I just couldn’t do anything that last match, and that was pretty much it. I’m ready for State and to see what I can do next week.”
Rodriguez was the last to go, with his opponent being Arkansas City’s Mitch Hewitt. The match began in a flurry, with Rodriguez nearly scoring his third consecutive pin of the day just 20 seconds into the first round. Rodriguez scored on a takedown to make it 2-0 and then quickly forced Hewitt onto his back. Hewitt somehow managed to get free, but the damage had been done, as Rodriguez took a 5-1 lead into the second period.
“I wanted to try to throw him real fast and pin him and get it over with,” Rodriguez said.
Another takedown by Rodriguez and two escapes by Hewitt made it 7-3 going into the third period, where Rodriguez said his superior conditioning allowed him to put the match away. Rodriguez scored on a reverse and two more takedowns to win the title by an 12-5 major decision.
“It ended up coming down to conditioning,” said Rodriguez, who had been coming in before school with the rest of his teammates to work on conditioning the past two weeks. “It paid off for me. That third period is when you really need that conditioning, and it really helped me out there.”
The first four matches of the finals all involved Emporia wrestlers, as Jared Dakin (103), Justin Rose (112), Sal Tovar (119) and Tavo Dikin (125) all made it the the championship rounds just as they had at last week’s league meet.
However, Dakin and Rose fell to Carroll’s duo of brothers John and Jordan Keller, as John pinned Dakin and Jordan took a 10-2 decision over Rose.
Tovar lost to Kapaun Mt. Carmel’s John Hagan in his title bout, dropping a 7-3 decision, while Arkansas City’s Trison Graham pinned Dikin 1 minute, 48 seconds into their match.
At 140 pounds, Carroll’s Mitch Arnold pinned Logan Gaskill, while at 160 pounds, Shaver dropped a 7-5 decision to Carroll’s Tanner Cody.
Shaver advanced to the finals thanks to a last-second takedown in the third period of his semifinal match against Kapaun’s Jonathon Truman that sent it to a fourth period tied at 5, before Shaver scored another takedown to win in overtime, 7-5.
When faced with essentially the same situation against Cody in the finals, Shaver never could attack with the same fire as he had against Truman in the semifinals, as Cody controlled the tempo of the match throughout to win, 7-4.
“I couldn’t really set up my shots or my moves that I like to shoot. I couldn’t really get any of them on that kid,” Shaver said. “He’s a good wrestler. He came away with a couple good shots on me that caught me off guard.”
At 189 pounds, Arkansas City’s Scott Elliott pinned Mark Kolmer, before Sparks and Rodriguez finally broke through for the Spartans.
In the consolation bracket, Zeb Peak took third at 135 pounds thanks to an injury default by Newton’s Matt Ahlstedt, while at 145 pounds, Taylor Lee came away with a fourth-place finish to round out Emporia’s State qualifiers.
“We didn’t come away with as many Regional champs as I would have liked, but again, we set ourselves up for a good showing at State,” Buckbee said. “I feel great about our chances. We’ve got seven seconds and two firsts, which means we get to see a lower seed at State in the first round and maybe in the second round.
“I am very pleased.”
jeff (anonymous) says...
189 lb was good
February 20, 2007 at 9:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )