Fitch, Boardman wrestlers take down Howland, Massillon
Tigers by the tail: Fitch dominates Howland, Massillon
By BOB Ettinger
austintown
Austintown Fitch accomplished the wrestling equivalent of pitching a perfect game and following it up with a no-hitter in steamrolling Massillon Washington, 84-0, and Howland, 78-0, Thursday night at Fitch.
“The guys wrestled aggressively,” Falcons coach John Burd said. “They went out to win. The goal was to pin in every match. We got quite a few tonight. They wrestled with a high tempo, a high pace and it worked out for us tonight.”
Boardman also finished the night with a pair of big victories in dropping Howland, 58-17, and Massillon, 68-6.
“The last two events, we’ve started to look better,” Boardman coach Dom Mancini said. “It seems like we’ve become more aggressive. When we put guys to their backs, we got pins. We tightened up our pinning combinations. I think we were more aggressive.”
The Falcons scored the maximum number of points possible in toppling Massillon. Every competitor who faced an opponent scored a pin and the remainder of the lineup accepted forfeits.
“We talk about being in good position,” Burd said. “We want to control the tempo and the pace. Every time we’re in a position, we want to try and control the position and outwork our opponent.”
Colin Roberts (106), Hunter Helminiak (120), Caden Brown (126), James Sutton (132), Zach Richards (138), Andrew Stehura (170), Willie Beverly (182) and Tyler Petrey all had pins and none of them wrestled into the third period.
On the other mat, the Spartans had pins from Sam DeJoseph (106) and Chase Gabriel (113) to open. Anthony Baglama (120) and Ali Abu-ghannam (126) followed with major decisions. After receiving a forfeit at 132, Nathan Thompson won a 5-1 decision over Howland’s Alexander Smith at 138 pounds.
Consecutive pins from Cade Pollak and Devon Blazek at 145 and 152, respectively made it 41-0.
Brandon Summerlin ended the shutout for the Tigers with a pin at 160 before Boardman’s John Fleet pinned at 170, a forfeit was accepted at 182 and Michael O’Horo won with a 15-0 technical fall at 195.
The Tigers’ Brandon Matlock closed the wrestling with his own 15-0 technical fall at 220 before Howland received a forfeit at heavyweight.
“Every kid goes out and gives what they have,” Howland coach Matt Zakrajsek said. “No one goes out wanting to lose. We’ve just got a lot of inexperienced kids. We just have to come in with the mindset that duals are just as serious as everything else. Our focus is working on competing. We don’t have the numbers of other schools, but we have to find other ways to compete because we’ve got to get things fixed.”
Just a handful of bouts were contested between the Falcons and Howland in the second match. Richards (138), Dom Miglets (152), Stehura (170) and Jacob Smail (195) all had pins for Fitch. Breylon Douglas beat Matlock, 10-5, at 220 and Petrey toppled Chris Julian, 4-2, in the final seconds at heavyweight.
DeJoseph (106), Baglama (120), Thompson (138), Fleet (170) and O’Horo (182) all recorded pins for the Spartans against Massillon. Nicholas Esmail had a technical fall at 132 and Abu-ghannam fought for a 12-10 overtime victory over Bouscher at 132.
Boardman forfeited at heavyweight in losing the shutout.