Cavaliers, MatDogs have solid performances

COLDWATER - Coldwater opened its wrestling season on Saturday with the annual Sielski Duals tournament at the Palace. The event, which was scheduled for last weekend but postponed due to Coldwater's playing in the Division V state title game, featured six teams wrestling in a round-robin format.

Elida came through the meet with a perfect 5-0 record to claim the team title. The deciding match came against Tinora, with the Bulldogs winning by a slim 33-32 margin to give the Rams their only loss of the day.

The host Cavaliers were third with a 3-2 record. Celina was fourth at 2-3 with Edgerton fifth at 1-4 and West Liberty-Salem finishing 0-5.

Coldwater drew Tinora in the opening round and fell 36-30. The second round had the battle of Mercer County teams between the MatDogs of Celina and the Cavaliers, who held on for a 40-31 win. After beating an undermanned WL-S team 51-11 in the third round, Coldwater faced Elida with the hopes of getting a win to set up a tiebreaker scenario at the end of the tournament. Elida, though, jumped out to a 24-9 lead early and stayed unbeaten with a 41-28 win. The Cavaliers wrapped up third place and a winning record with a 39-24 win over Edgerton.

Despite missing several wrestlers who played on the football team, Coldwater coach Rob Schmidt was pleased with the effort.

"Overall, I'm satisfied. We have some things to work on," Schmidt said. "It's early in the season and I am sure we can make some adjustments and continue to improve on the season."

Celina beat West Liberty-Salem 61-6 in the first round. After the Coldwater match, Celina faced back-to-back Green Meadows Conference teams in Edgerton and Tinora. The MatDogs beat Edgerton 51-30 but lost to Tinora 49-30 to set up a WBL battle with Elida in the final round. Elida, with a full squad, pulled away to complete their perfect day with a 54-21 win over Celina.

"Our goal was 3-2, but we lost Kent Jutte midway through (due to injury) and Seth Breemer last night (in practice), so we voided three classes and had four freshmen in the lineup," Celina coach James Miracle said. "We would have liked to pull that one out against Elida at the end. I'm not displeased. We wrestled hard. We're young, and now we're beat up."

Earning medals for going 5-0 on the day were Coldwater's Sam Muhlenkamp, Jay Uhlenhake and Jordan Obringer.

"Those guys stepped up," Schmidt said. "Spencer Siebert had a good day in the toughest weight here (138 pounds, which featured several district qualifiers from last season. He lost one (bout) in overtime and another by a point."

Celina's Austin Hines and Brandon Roark also went unbeaten on the day.

Coldwater is back in action Saturday at Middletown Madison. Celina travels to Bath on Tuesday for a WBL Super-Triangular match against Van Wert and Wapakoneta.