ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Arce, Day Win NWOAL Wrestling Championships

Streaks Third In League Tournament




Logan Day works for control over Liberty Center's Zach Niner in the NWOAL wrestling championships, Saturday, Feb. 2. Day won the 138-lb. weight class with a 5-4 decision in four overtimes.– photo by Mario Gomez

Logan Day works for control over Liberty Center’s Zach Niner in the NWOAL wrestling championships, Saturday, Feb. 2. Day won the 138-lb. weight class with a 5-4 decision in four overtimes.– photo by Mario Gomez

Delta hosted the 2013 Northwest Ohio Athletic League championships, Saturday, Feb. 2, and kept the trophy at home, winning the league title with 230 team points.

Wauseon, who won the last three league titles, finished second with 187.5. Archbold was half of a point behind at 187 for third.

Bryan was fourth with 138, followed by Swanton 109.5, Liberty Center 87.5, Evergreen 57, Patrick Henry 45, and Montpelier 44.5.

“Delta kind of put the hammer on everybody here today,” said Brian Becher, AHS head coach.

“They wrestled pretty tough, so we’re gonna have a tough match with them Wednesday. Hopefully we can wrestle them a little bit tougher than we did today in our head-to-head matchups.”

Archbold wrestles Delta for the regional team title tonight, Wednesday, at AHS.

Two wrestlers won league titles for Archbold. Justin Arce won at 106 pounds while Logan Day grabbed a league title at 138 lbs.

Arce defeated Delta’s Alex Dailey in the championship finals. The senior wrestler grabbed a 7-4 win to earn his first championship.

Justin Arce tilts his opponent at the Region 17-A regional semifinal, Wednesday, Jan. 30. Arce won a 7-4 decision over Delta's Alex Dailey to win the 106-lb. championship at the NWOAL wrestling tournament, Saturday, Feb. 2.– photo by Mario Gomez

Justin Arce tilts his opponent at the Region 17-A regional semifinal, Wednesday, Jan. 30. Arce won a 7-4 decision over Delta’s Alex Dailey to win the 106-lb. championship at the NWOAL wrestling tournament, Saturday, Feb. 2.– photo by Mario Gomez

“Someone who has turned the corner that a lot of people don’t know about is Justin,” said Becher. “He wrestled a tough tournament.

“It’s nice for him after not making the varsity lineup until his senior year to get a league championship.”

Day wrestled the premiere match of the evening against Liberty Center’s Zach Niner.

The match was tied at the end of regulation 3-3. After a one-minute overtime and two 30-second overtimes, the score was knotted at 4 going into the final overtime.

Niner chose the down position and only had to escape to win. Day kept Niner down for the full 30 seconds to win his first championship.

“Niner is a hard guy to wrestle. He’s got such a good defensive stance from the neutral position,” said Becher.

“Logan is just gonna have to get in on some attacks next time he wrestles him. You don’t want it coming down to that overtime rideout stuff.”

Finishing second were Damian Short (120 lbs.) and Travis Jaramillo (195 lbs.). Third place finishers were Zach Meyer (113 lbs.), Lukas Rufenacht (126 lbs.), Ben Eggers (132 lbs.) and Lee Klinger (285 lbs.).

Justice Zimmerman (145 lbs.), Garrett Grime (152 lbs.), Eli Hammersmith (182 lbs.) and Preston Klopfenstein (220 lbs.) placed fourth. David Bell (160 lbs.) was fifth.

Archbold-Wauseon is one of the premier wrestling rivalries in northwest Ohio.

The Indians have had the Streaks’ number, winning their last five NWOAL meetings. Archbold’s last win against Wauseon dated back to Dec. 18, 2007.

Someone forgot to tell the 2013 Streaks about Wauseon’s dominance as the Blue and Gold pulled out a hard-fought 37-33 win.

“Wauseon had some guys out with injuries,” said Brian Becher, AHS head coach.

“We matched up pretty well, better than I thought we were gonna match up with them.”

The Indians started the scoring as Jacob Whitcomb won a 19-6 major decision over Ben Eggers (132 pounds), giving them a quick 4-0 lead.

Justice Zimmerman (138 lbs.) got the lead back for AHS with a fall over Cameron Slattman.

Logan Day (145 lbs.) dominated Austin Yarnell in a 10- 4 win for a 9-4 AHS lead.

Garrett Grime (152 lbs.) lost an 8-0 major decision to Antonil Campbell. Lincoln Parsley (160 lbs.) battled LJ Frost and came out with a 15-3 major decision.

With the score 13-8 in Archbold’s favor, Wauseon’s Aaron Schuette pinned David Bell (170 lbs.) to give the Indians a 14-13 lead.

Wauseon’s advantage increased to 29-13 as Eli Hammersmith (182 lbs.) lost 4-0 to Riley Lane, Archbold forfeited at 195 lbs. and Zane Krall pinned Preston Klopfenstein (220 lbs.).

Lee Klinger (285 lbs.) helped Archbold climb back in with a 1:59 fall of Devon Jones.

Jones was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct call and a one-point deduction, making the score 28-19.

Justin Arce (106 lbs.) won by forfeit and Zach Meyer (113 lbs.) won by injury default over Jackson Sluder, giving Archbold a lead it would not surrender at 31- 29.

Damian Short (120 lbs.) received another forfeit before Wade Hodges defeated Lukas Rufenacht (126 lbs.) by technical fall to end the match with the score of 37- 33 and giving the Streaks bragging rights.

“I brought the guys together afterwards and I told them the biggest thing that impressed me is that they were humble after they won,” said Becher.

“We weren’t hooting and hollering like it was some huge upset, which was nice to see.”

AHS 50, Swanton 25

After the huge win over Wauseon, the Streaks had to get right back to work against a scrappy Swanton team.

Archbold jumped out to a 27-0 lead with pins by Zimmerman,

Day and Grime.

Parsley won a 12-10 decision and Jesse Rocha received a forfeit.

Swanton cut the difference to 27-21 with four straight wins.

Arce gave Archbold a cushion with a technical fall, but Swanton won the next match to make the score 32- 25.

Short received another forfeit while Rufenacht and Eggers pinned their opponents to make the final score 50-25.

“I knew we’d have somewhat of a letdown coming into the next match,” said Becher. “It’s inevitable after you get a big win.

“Swanton’s got some guys that just wrestle hard. They matched up with us pretty well in different situations.

“Overall, I’m pretty pleased. I think we’re wrestling pretty tough going into the weekend.”


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