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Area wrestlers off to strong start in Columbus
State Wrestling Tournament
Gallery
Photo highlights from Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 Ohio Wrestling StateTournament.
Mancini, Stark among seven area wrestlers with first-round victories
By ERIC Mauk
COLUMBUS
Area wrestlers put on a display of toughness during the first day of the Ohio High School State Wrestling Tournament in Columbus, as 13 of the 17 locally-based state qualifiers advanced through the first day of competition.
Some, like Howland’s district champion Gabe Stark (145 pounds) and Boardman’s Nick Mancini (113), advanced easily through the first round — Stark with a pin and Mancini with an 8-1 win that was easier than it looked.
Stark and Mancini led a group of seven area grapplers that won their first matches in the early session and took the rest of the day off to rest for Friday’s second round.
But the real gains were made for the area wrestlers in the evening consolation rounds where six athletes bounced back from first-round losses to win consolation matches and earn an overnight stay in the state’s capital.
“I came out flat in my first match and got beat, but I knew I didn’t want to go home tonight, so I came back and fought hard,” said Howland’s Jordan Radich, who came back from getting pinned in his opening match at 160 to beat Dalton Jones of Hamilton Ross 3-1. “I started getting loose and jumping rope like an hour before my consolation match and it helped me a lot.”
Sophomore Daniel Hasson of Beaver Local was another that had a tough go of it in the first round, but battled back to stay alive and punch his ticket for Friday. After a 13-6 opening round loss to Justin Smith, Hasson pinned Sandusky’s Gene Porter with 32 seconds left to advance to Day 2 in his first state tournament.
“You come out for your first match and the lights are bright and the place is just huge,” Hasson said. “But after I lost, I knew I just had to block it all out and concentrate on what I needed to do here. After this, I’ll sleep a little better tonight for sure.”
The upset of the day belonged to Poland junior Mike Audi, who knocked off 170-pound district champion Mark Barrow of New Philadelphia, 4-2, in the first round. Audi, who moved to 36-9 on the year with the win, held the lead for most of the match, taking a 3-0 advantage with an escape and take down before a Barrow reversal made it 3-2. Audi escaped to make it 4-2 at the close of the second period and held off the district champ for the final two minutes to take the win.
Other first-round winners were: Beaver Local’s 113-pounder Joshua Henderson, whose second-period near-fall accounted for all of the points in a 3-0 win over Forrest Brewer of Franklin; David Brian Whisler of Howland who beat Hillsboro’s Kordell Ford 8-2 in his opener at 152; and West Branch’s duo of Logan Sharp at 220 and Connor Sharp at 285.
Logan had the tougher time of the two in a 3-2 victory over Carrollton’s Austin Bentley, escaping with the win after benefitting from two penalty points awarded to him during the bout. Connor Sharp, who is looking to improve on his third-place finish from the 2012 state tourney, bombed New Richmond’s J.R. Forsee 10-1 to advance.
The local baker’s dozen will be back in action today at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of The Ohio State University, with the quarterfinal matches starting at 10 a.m. Consolation matches will begin at 12:15, with the semifinal matches getting underway at 6:30.