Dublin Coffman, Olentangy Liberty boys wrestling teams advance to state dual tournament
The Dublin Coffman and Olentangy Liberty boys wrestling teams have qualified for the Division I state dual tournament Saturday at Lakewood St. Edward.
The top two teams from each of Ohio's four regions advance to state. The dual tournament is sponsored by the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association.
Competing at home, Coffman defeated Olentangy 65-9 in a district semifinal and Marysville 53-18 in the final to advance. At Teays Valley, Liberty beat Newark 63-9 in a semifinal and Lancaster 55-21 in the final.
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Coffman trailed Olentangy 9-0 before scoring the final 65 points. Marysville reached the final by beating Westerville North 44-24.
Against Marysville, winners by pin for Coffman were Nick Lawrensen at 106 pounds (34 seconds), Joseph Baumann at 126 (1:13), Omar Ayoub at 138 (3:29), Grayson Woodcock at 144 (1:25), Hashim Wordlaw at 150 (2:46) and Ethan Birden at 165 (52 seconds).
At 175, Coffman’s Storm Beane defeated Colton Powers 5-3 in a battle of two of the area's top performers.
“Marysville is always a great program,” Coffman coach Chance Van Gundy said. “We knew we were going to have another fight on our hands. The goal is to advance, but I still found some matches that were winnable and we kind of blew it.”
Winning by pin for Marysville were Gage Riley at 113 (4:00), Brady Seger at 190 (7:20, OT) and Stephen Garcia at 215 (5:25).
“Coffman is what we thought they were,” Marysville coach Shawn Andrews said. “You can’t control who your opponents are, but you can control some things within your team. I thought there were places where we could have fought a little bit differently, fought a little harder, whether those are positions or ends of periods. Credit to them, but we have to do better.”
North defeated Olentangy 36-32 in the consolation match.
“We had two great matches,” North coach David Grant said. “We had a nice recovery after our loss. I told the kids whoever recovered better from their loss was going to win our (consolation) dual. It was a tight dual and we recovered better.”
Olentangy coach Dennis Lyberger said the two matches were a good learning experience for his team.
“I’m big on wrestling the guys you’re going to see at the state (individual) tournament,” he said. “You get to wrestle them here and that’s a good thing.”
The individual postseason, which is sponsored by the OHSAA, begins Feb. 25 with sectional tournaments.
For Liberty against Lancaster, winners by pin were Huggy Williams at 106 (45 seconds), Jaxson Rosselli at 113 (34 seconds), Prestyn Parks at 120 (3:30), Tyler Deericks at 150 (1:30), Broc Fitzpatrick at 157 (1:22) and Luke Fleet at heavyweight (1:45).
“We wrestled pretty well,” Liberty coach Mark Marinelli said. “We’re starting to compete again. Newark wrestled us tough and Lancaster has a really nice team, but we wrestled really well against them.”
Winners by pin for Lancaster were Jace Edmonds at 132 (5:00) and Andrew Kraft at 138 (45 seconds).
Lancaster advanced to the final with a 37-36 win over Teays Valley on tiebreaker criteria. Teays Valley defeated Newark 53-24 in the consolation match.
In a Division II district tournament at Vandalia-Butler, DeSales made it to the final before losing to Butler 39-37.
Winners by pin for DeSales were David McClelland at 138 (1:18), Owen Eagan at 157 (1:51), Andrew Barford at 165 (3:38) and Lincoln Shulaw at 175 (30 seconds).
Hartley lost to DeSales 49-24 in a semifinal before defeating Reading 43-33 in the consolation match.
At Wilmington, Granville defeated Tipp City Tippecanoe 55-24 in a quarterfinal and then fell to St. Paris Graham 73-6 in a semifinal. Jonathan Alder beat Wilmington 48-24 in a semifinal before losing to Graham 55-20 in the final.
In Division III at Coshocton, Centerburg lost to Sarahsville Shenandoah 46-27 and Zoarville Tuscarawas Valley 45-28.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Coffman, Liberty boys wrestling teams qualify for state duals
