Solid efforts on the mat

WAPAKONETA - The 2019 edition of the Western Buckeye League wrestling tournament went a lot better for Celina and St. Marys.

Meanwhile, nothing changed for the host Wapakoneta Redskins, who dominated to capture a fourth-straight overall league title with a first-place finish in the tournament.

But the 2019 tournament was a breath of fresh air for Celina, which finished last in the tournament a season ago and was seventh overall. This year, Celina had its first league champion in eight years and finished third in the tournament and fourth overall.

"We exorcised a lot of demons today," said Celina coach James Miracle. "We had six of our 14 regular starters out. Our goal was top four and we were third; Get a champion and we got one; And place eight (wrestlers in the top four). We only placed seven but we had a couple guys real close."

The lone championship for the Bulldogs came from Luke Muhlenkamp as he ran through the 182-pound bracket to face Wapakoneta's Koleman Brown in the championship bout. Muhlenkamp found an opening late in the first period and scored the pinfall with 15 seconds remaining in the bout to give Celina its first WBL champion since 2011, when Curtis Doner won the 135-pound title.

"He was pretty strong," said Muhlenkamp, who picked up his 100th career win earlier in the tournament. "He was hard to shoot on because he was backing up, so I waited for him to shoot and I did my crossface off of that."

The Bulldogs had two other wrestlers advance to championship matches. Landon Engle faced off against St. Marys' Trevor Hisey in the 113-pound final. Hisey quickly took the lead and never looked back in posting the 9-0 major decision.

"I knew I was up in the final period, so I tried to get up (for a pin) but (Engle) was too strong," said Hisey.

Celina's Jaden King was the runner-up at 132 pounds but was unable to compete in the championship match against Defiance's Tristan Villarreal after he was injured due to an illegal move in the semifinal, winning via disqualification.

The rest of Celina's points came in the third-place bouts. Aric Gallimore defeated St. Marys' Zach Spicer at 145. Logan Muhlenkamp took home third at 170 after winning 8-1 over Ethan Manns and Cayden Thomson took third at 220 with a pinfall win over Joey Hale of Shawnee. Sam Warner was fourth at 128 after being pinned by Keaton Elling of Wapakoneta.

St. Marys, which won the 2018 regular season title but struggled in the tournament to finish as overall league runner-up, was this year's tournament runner-up and leap-frogged Defiance to take the overall runner-up.

"Today we finished where we thought we would finish," said St. Marys coach Larry Gruber.

In addition to Hisey's title, Tommy Mabry made it two titles for the Roughriders as he faced Elyjah Roa of Wapakoneta in the 160-pound final. Mabry clinched a 4-2 decision to win the match.

"It was awesome. It was what I was training for," said Mabry. "It was really close. I had to keep control of him and get into my setups."

Trevor Hisey's brother Tyler finished second at 106 after falling 9-0 to Wapak's Colin Mellot. Clayton Drummond, last year's 106-pound champ, made the final at 120, going via 17-1 technical fall to Defiance's Juan Perez. Noah Vogel lost in the 170 final via a 10-4 decision to Elida's Lawrence Slygh.

Nicholas Myers finished third at 285 while Mason Saeler was third at 182. Preston Wiechart placed fourth at 145 and Carter Sharpe was fourth at 195.

Celina and St. Marys, along with most of the other WBL teams, travel to Napoleon this weekend for the Division II sectional at Napoleon High School.