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Howland and West Branch on top of EOWL
AUSTINTOWN
Standing on one side of the crowded, filled-to-capacity gymnasium at Austintown Fitch High, you can hear Mike Helm screaming from the other.
With five matches going on at the same time, it’s loud, sweaty and tense, but the West Branch wrestling coaching is still barking out orders to his guys on the mat.
“Heck, I’m standing here in Austintown and I bet they can hear me out in Beloit,” Helm said. “When we say to do something, we expect them to do it.”
And the Warriors do respond.
After day one of the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League Championships, they sit in second place with a team score of 90.
The favored Howland Tigers have 95.5 points and are the overall leaders. Behind the top two teams, Grand Valley sits in third place, 32 points back from the Warriors and 37.5 away from the Tigers.
Thirteen of West Branch’s wrestlers advanced to today’s action which begins at 9 a.m. with the final round commencing at 4:45 p.m.
Nine Warriors — Travis Pidgeon (113), DJ Anderson (120), Mikey Estock (138), Kenny Faulkner (145), Tyler Pidgeon (152), William Paynter (160), Aaron Page (170), Joe Karlen (182) and Connor Sharp (285) — went undefeated in the first day. Four — Alex Schopfer (106), AJ O’Brien (126), Matt Unkefer (195) and Clayton Bates (220) — are moving on in the consolation bracket.
The only two that did not end Friday on a win were freshmen.
“It’s a good thing for them to learn how to compete in this atmosphere,” Helm said.
Howland, the reigning EOWL champions, advanced 13, 10 to the semifinals with three to the consolation rounds.
“All night long, I thought we wrestled really tough,” Tigers’ coach Bill Beasom said. “They did the best could they do.”
Nico Lucarelli (106), Alex Cornicelli (126), Andrew Hamilton (132), Gabe Stark (138), Bobby Klose (145), David Brian Whisler (152), Jordan Radich (160), Tyler Drass (170), Andrew Rolfe (220) and Austin Hutchins (285) are set up for the third round, while Aaron Jackon (113), Brian Puharich (182) and Josh Grodesky (195) will take part in the consolation bracket.
Beasom said he expects this success out of his squad, partially because he’s been with many of the wrestlers for five or six years. He was the Howland seventh grade coach before taking over varsity duties three years ago.
“They each want to do good for each other,” Beasom said. “I’ve been stressing team camaraderie and they’re friends on and off the mat. It gets really heated in our wrestling room because we have kids that have the talent and they push each other to get better.”
Canfield, who was in third place after the first round, dropped to sixth after a tough second. Anthony Spencer (113) and Jake Dunbar (126) advanced to the semis, with nine other Cardinals competing on the consolation side.
Boardman and host-Fitch sit in sixth and seventh place with 42 and 37 points, respectively.
It takes two more wins for those competitors in the semifinals to be crowned champions in their respective weight class. From a team standpoint, the emotions will still have to flow from one teammate to another.
“Can we go with Howland? I don’t know,” Helm said. “It’ll be hard to catch them and, really, when you get to the semifinals, there’s so much great competition that everybody is tough. One mistake and it’s over. But we’re gunned up and excited.”
The Tigers are waiting.
“Howland wrestling, in traditional standpoint, is not intimidated by anyone,” Beasom said. “We want to be the ones doing the intimidating.”