Canfield wrestlers win early, then show support for a teammate

March 13, 2015 at 12:10a.m.

Canfield wrestlers win early,

then show support for teammate

COLUMBUS

Winning early on Thursday afternoon at the Ohio High School State Wrestling Tournament makes for a relaxing day. First-round winners are done for the day, can go back to the hotel, eat, shower, relax and think about what lies ahead on Day Two.

But for the four first-round winners who carry the colors of Canfield High School, the only thing on their minds was helping pull their teammate through to today’s festivities.

After Georgio Poullas (126 pounds), C.J. Frost (132), David Crawford (152) and Jacob Esarco (220) scored first-round victories at Ohio State’s Value City Arena, each of them stayed until freshman Matthew Cardello’s consolation match.

The support paid off for the young 106-pounder as he bounced back from a tough 7-6 loss to East Liverpool’s Alex Potts in the opener and dominated Jake Gentry in a 17-1 rout.

“We have a couple of vans, we told the kids they could go back after their matches and rest up, take some time, but the first thing each of them thought of was getting showered and getting to their seats to watch Matt wrestle,” said Canfield coach Dean Conley. “You don’t see that all the time. We think we have something special going on here in this program and it starts with the kids.”

Canfield grapplers had the best day of any of the local schools on the opening day of the 78th annual gathering of the state best high-school wrestlers, going 5-1 to claim the sixth position in the Division II team scores.

Interestingly, the team points came without the benefit of a pin as Poullas won 6-0, Frost advanced with a 10-2 victory, the freshman Crawford took a 9-5 win and district champion Esarco moved on with a 5-2 score.

“These guys have great wrestling IQs, they know the score, the situation, nothing escapes them in doing what they have to do to win,” Conley said. “It’s a combination of a lot of things. We have a great feeder program, our coaches put in a lot of effort and we get outstanding support from our parents. We have a lot of people doing a lot of things, and we couldn’t have any of this success without them.”

In all, 13 local wrestlers will wake up this morning with their state championship dreams still intact, including four seniors who are facing their final shot at reaching the top step of the podium.

Two-time state placer David-Brian Whisler of Howland stormed through his first-round match, using a series of two-point takedowns to eliminate Springfield Northwestern’s Connor Rogers 17-5, while fellow senior Daniel Hasson of Beaver Local needed just 45 seconds to dispatch Western Brown’s Malachi Marlow.

Wellsville’s Seth Bloor used a second-round pin to advance in the Division III 285-pound bracket in his final high school tournament, while West Branch senior Alec Schopfer scored a 5-3 win in the 106-pound bracket of Division II.

A couple of fourth-seeded wrestlers scored big upsets today, led by Poland’s Dante Ginnetti, who decked 113-pound district champion Maxx Peters in 74 seconds to move on. Pymatuning Valley freshman Gaige Willis used a tenacious defense in the third period of his match to knock off 170-pound district champion Corbin Bunsold of North Union. The Lakers’ wrestler took a 3-2 lead late in the second period and held on to Bunsold throughout the entire third period to each the win in the Division III bracket.

In all 20 wrestlers advanced to today’s competition with seven staying alive with victories in their first-round consolation matches after early losses.

Wrestling begins today at 10 a.m. with championship quarterfinals. A third session featuring championship semifinals is set for 6:30 p.m. Championship matches will be at 5:45 p.m. Saturday.