By Jim Henry
jhenry@joplinglobe.com
A change in wrestling classifications this year by the OHSAA left Grove as the smallest school among the 32 teams in Class 5A.
But the Ridgerunners, last year’s Class 4A state champion, aren’t intimidated entering this weekend’s 88th state wrestling tournament.
“It is a big challenge,” Grove head coach John Henry Ward said. “But after last year’s success of winning the whole thing at the 4A level, they no longer feel when they go there that they are the underdogs. They know if they wrestle well, it doesn’t matter. They have a chance to win.”
All four state tournaments are being held at the State Fair Arena in Oklahoma City. First-round matches begin at 10:30 a.m. Friday, and Saturday’s action starts at 10:30 and ends with the championship matches at 6 p.m.
Four of Grove’s six qualifiers earned medals last year. Damien Housley (33-4 at 119 pounds) capped a 37-0 season with the title at 103. Zach Housley (35-3 at 112) returns to the weight class where he placed second. Connor Sarwinski (37-0 at 152) was third at 140, and Dusty Gehrke (33-9 at 160) was fourth at 160.
Housley and Sarwinski were regional champions last week, and Hopper and Spencer Rutherford (37-5 at 125) took second. Gehrke came back to finish third, and Weston Culvey (24-10 at 215) was fourth.
“It went a lot like we expected it to,” Ward said. “The two who won it, we thought they should win it. The two who got second, we knew they would have to wrestle well to win it. The guys they lost to were no slouches.
“Gehrke definitely had a chance to be in the finals, but he lost a close match to the kid from Collinsville (Michael Maul, who is 21-3). He made a mistake, got caught on his back ... other than that he wrestled a good match. One surprise was our 215-pounder (Culvey). We knew he had to wrestle well, and he did a good job and qualified for state.”
Class 4A
The 4A tournament includes three wrestlers from Jay and two from Miami.
The Wardogs’ Blaine Fields (32-7 at 135) and Jay’s Jimmy Roach (39-9 at 125) placed second for the highest regional finishes among the five. Thirds went to Miami’s Colby Anderson (33-11 at 125) and Jay’s Izach Wilson (41-11 at 130), and the Bulldogs’ Danny Bettelyoun (32-17 at 119) was fourth.
