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Fitch wrestlers come up big against Boardman, Howland
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Fitch’s Blake Hibbs, top, tries to pin Boardman’s AJ Yaist during their match in the 220-pound weight class of a tri-meet at Boardman High School on Thursday. Hibbs succeeded in pinning Yaist, and the Falcons took down the Spartans, 54-10, as well as the Howland Tigers, 53-15. Howland topped Boardman, 40-30.
BOARDMAN
The Austintown Fitch wrestling team sent a message to the rest of the Mahoning Valley on Thursday by dominating its tri-meet against Boardman and Howland.
The Falcons defeated the Spartans, 54-10, and the Tigers, 53-15. For those two teams, the message was received loud and clear. For the other top teams in the area, Fitch is ready to give them their best shot this season.
“For a while, we could beat maybe one out of three or four in our division,” Fitch coach Brett Powell said. “This is a huge jump for us. The kids are really focused and they’ve really worked their rear ends off.”
Powell’s had a busy month going back and fourth between Fitch wrestling practice and Western Reserve football practice where he’s also an assistant coach, and said he owes a lot of the team’s early success to his assistants for the preparation they’ve done.
It also helps having 10 wrestlers returning from last season’s squad.
“I think the leaders on this team really pushed themselves tonight,” Powell said. “The fact that we won 23 out of 28 matches is a real eye opener for the whole team. It was not individual other than a couple of key matchups. Everybody pitched in and did their part tonight.”
One of the key individual matchups he spoke of was between Fitch’s Zach Mackall and Boardman’s Mario Graziani at 145 pounds. Mackall got the better of Graziani, 6-5, in what ended up being one of the best matches of the day.
“We all worked really hard in the offseason and gave it all we had,” said Mackall, a senior. “This just gives us momentum. We need to remember what we did to get these wins and then just use that to beat all of our other opponents. We just need to keep going as hard as we can.”
It wasn’t just the upperclassmen getting the Falcons points on Thursday. The four sophomores in the starting lineup also contributed to the lopsided victories.
“I feels pretty good because I feel like a bigger part of the team,” sophomore Adam Green said. “It just kind of sets us up for the harder part of our season coming up and this really prepares us for that.”
Mackall believes their contribution is going to be much-needed as the season goes on.
“That’s amazing for us,” he said. “They definitely stepped up and we definitely needed them to.”
In the third matchup of the night, Howland defeated Boardman, 40-30. The Tigers’ heavyweight wrestlers took control of the match with pins in four of the seven matches.
Boardman’s Vince Mancini had convincing victories in both of his matchups at 106 pounds. He was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise difficult night for the Spartans.
As for Fitch, Powell said his team’s performance at Boardman on Thursday, coupled with its win in a tournament last week in Cleveland, has set the bar higher for the remainder of the season.
“The kids are dialed in and they want to do it and I think it’s going to be a really awesome season,” Powell said.
He also knows there is a team still sitting on top, waiting for its crack at the Falcons.
“We’ve been working our rear ends off to get to that top of the pack,” Powell said. “But we know Canfield’s out there and I know the road to the title’s going to run through them right now.”