Youth wrestlers win West Branch dual tournament

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Neighbors | Submitted.Members of the Canfield Wrestling Club celebrated after the team went 6-0 and captured the team title at the West Branch Tournament Dec. 18.

The Canfield Wrestling Club went 6-0 at the West Branch Tournament Dec. 18 to capture the team title.

The team won dual matches against Massillon Jackson (76-23), Tuslaw (61-40) and Akron Buchtel (50-45) to make the championship bracket.

The Cardinals made the finals with wins over West Branch (65-46) and Akron North (57-47).

In the championship match against Carrollton, the Cardinals never had a lead. With three matches to go and down by 18 points (55-47), Canfield needed three pins just to tie.

Terry Adkins (132 pounds) pinned his opponent in the first period, narrowing the gap to 12 points. Hunter Mersing (150) and Michael Dudash (175) completed the rally with pins to tie the team score at 55-55.

After checking the tiebreaker criteria, the officials found that both teams had six pins each. The next criteria was number of matches won. Canfield won 11 matches and Carrollton won 10.

“What a great tournament with some really good competition. Our kids work hard at practice and it paid off today,” coach Dave Crawford noted after the win. “Last year, we came in third after losing by one point to West Branch in the semis. West Branch went on to win it, so we felt like we could have been right there.”

Sixth-grader Georgio Poullas (105) was voted the team MVP and received the championship trophy. Mersing went undefeated on the day (4-0). Other wrestlers doing well included Adkins (5-1), David Crawford (95, 5-1) and Dominic Cooper (90, 4-1). The rest of the team included Ron Angelilli, Alec Herman, McCoy Watkins, Christian Wayt, Billy Robinson, Chance Merlin, Hunter Helminiak, Andy Garr, Carter Myers, Nick Crawford, Will Dawson, Nathan Whitehead, Daniel Kapalko, Braxton Madison and Zach Bernat.