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EOWL meet under way
By Ryan Buck
BOARDMAN
The power may have gone out across Boardman on Friday afternoon and into the evening hours, but it wasn’t enough to curb the energy inside the Boardman High Gymnasium.
The New Castle School of Trades Eastern Ohio Wrestling League Championship was delayed by the outage, but wrestlers took to the mats merely 60 minutes later and the area’s premier wrestling event was off and running.
The two-day, 46th annual tournament now features 20 schools from several local athletic conferences, four Ohio High School Athletic Association Divisions, and 14 weight classes.
Perennial favorite West Branch (92 points) jumped out to a 16-point lead in the team standings, followed by Canfield with 76 points, and defending EOWL champion Howland at 70.
The Warriors, champions of the Northeast Buckeye Conference, have put themselves in a very comfortable position headed into today’s finals and the upcoming postseason.
“We’ve won a few matches, and we’ve lost a few, and that’s the nice thing about this tournament is there’s some quality kids here and you get great competition,” said first-year West Branch coach Jason Smith. “That’s why we’re in this league and that’s what we came to do is to get ourselves all tuned up for the sectionals.”
Meanwhile, Nick Mancini etched his name into the Boardman record books.
The senior, already committed to wrestle at Cleveland State next year, broke the school record for matches won with a 19-5 second-round decision over Jackson-Milton’s Zane Chase.
Mancini, whose father Dom coaches the Spartans and leads a family steeped in wrestling success, relished the chance to set the record in the last event at Boardman.”
“It feels great, especially in your home gym, in front of people I’ve been wrestling in front of since I was 5,” Mancini said. “It’s what I’ve been working for all year and it’s like a dream come true.”
Mancini, with 128 career wins, is vying for his fourth EOWL title in his third weight class, this time at 120 pounds.
“I bumped up from the 113-pound weight class to get better competition at 120,” he said. “It’s against tougher guys overall and it’s hopefully going to pay off down the road towards state.”
Boardman wrestlers have qualified for the state tournament on 43 occasions, with 18 placing in the top eight spots and two champions. Mancini reached the tournament during his sophomore and junior seasons as a qualifier, but is looking to join Greg Cooper (1973) and Justin Powell (2007) atop the plaque of Spartans that adorn the wall outside his second home.
Howland’s David-Brian Whisler, in his first round match in the 152-pound weight class, earned the school record for most pins with a victory over Hubbard’s Damian Sharpnack in the opening round.