West Branch, Fitch grapple for EOWL team supremacy

By Eric Hamilton

Heading into the second day of the tourney, the Warriors and Falcons each have nine wrestlers in the semifinals.

AUSTINTOWN — After the first day of competition at the EOWL wrestling tournament, it’s shaping up to be a two-horse race for the team title.

West Branch and defending champion Austintown Fitch will each send nine wrestlers to today’s semifinals and will battle for supremacy.

The Warriors will enter Day Two with 88.5 team points, which is 6.5 points better than second-place Fitch (82). Rounding out the top five teams are Beaver Local (66), Howland (65.5) and Canfield (54).

In the team standings, Fitch leads the pack in Division I, West Branch is tops in Division II, Jackson-Milton (50.5) paces Division III and Pymatuning Valley (38) is first in Division IV.

West Branch at the top of the leaderboard is not much of a surprise, as the Warriors have been a force this winter, winning all their duals and taking second at the Riverside and Bill Dies tournaments.

The key so far, including at the EOWL, is the team’s depth all the way through the lineup.

“We wrestled well overall today,” said West Branch coach Mike Helm. “What we told the kids before the tournament was that they just needed to do whatever they needed to just to move on to the next round. That was our goal.

“We’re pretty solid in all 14 weight classes and what helps us in tournaments is that were placing a lot kids. We’re not necessarily getting titles, but we’re scoring a lot of points.”

While Fitch and West Branch advanced the most wrestlers to the semifinals, there are plenty of other locals from other teams still alive in the championship round.

Beaver Local heads the group with six semifinalists, with Jackson-Milton and Howland right behind with five. Boardman and Canfield each have four in the hunt for individual championships.

Brookfield, Hubbard and Girard each have two, while South Range and Salem each moved one into the semis.

It should be an entertaining semifinal round, as the top four seeds are still alive in six of the 14 weight classes — 112, 119, 140, 145, 152 and 171. Those 24 wrestlers include five former state placers and four state qualifiers.

All five of the division teams are among the top seven spots in the team race, with West Branch (Division II) and Jackson-Milton (Division III) being the smaller schools making noise.

Blue Jays coach Dave Tomaino was pleased with where his team stood after the first day and has high hopes for what could happen on Day Two.

“I think we wrestled to our potential today,” said Tomaino. “We usually have a bad league tournament and come out flat, but so far we’re focused. Hopefully, that will carry over to tomorrow and to sectionals.

“We wanted to be in the top five and I think that’s pretty good for a small school at this tournament. We just need to get four guys to the finals and everyone else needs to score points in order for us to get there.”

Action continues today at 10 a.m. with the second round of consolation matches. The finals will be contested at 6 p.m. after the induction of the 2009 class into the EOWL Hall of Fame.