Celina grapplers win WBL dual

CELINA - The Celina wrestling team opened its home schedule with a 60-21 win over Kenton in a Western Buckeye League dual match at the high school gymnasium.

The Bulldogs (2-0) took advantage of the Wildcats having to void out in seven weight classes, giving Celina 42 points before the first bout began.  

"The things we wanted to see happen, we got most of them," said Celina coach James Miracle.

The highlight of the night came in the 170-pound bout. Celina's Logan Muhlenkamp pinned fellow district qualifier Trevor Manns in 1:25 to earn his 100th career win.

"That was a big one," said Miracle.

The night started with Nathan Wilson coming up big at 126 points against Josh Hart. Wilson took the early 7-2 lead and was up 9-4 after two periods before finally getting back-points against Hart and recording the pin at 4:52.

The Wildcats took the next three contested matches. Mason Rhoads pinned Kyler Bowby at 132 pounds and then Bryce Blankenship pinned Abudlla Davlatboyev at 138. Celina got the void win at 145 before Kenton's Carter Bays pinned Ethan Ly in just 66 seconds at 152.

After a void win at 160 followed by Logan Muhlenkamp's milestone win at 170, Luke Muhlenkamp made it two pins for the family by pinning Jacob Taylor in 1:36 at 182 pounds. The final contested match was at 220, and Noah Eikenbary took an early lead and recorded the only non-pinfall match on the night with a 7-2 win over Celina's Cayden Thompson.

"Eikenbary was state-ranked and a district qualifier and Cayden was district alternate (last season)," said Miracle. "Nathan wrestled his best match in two years at 126.

"It's bittersweet (about the voids) for our lighter weights because we have some kids who would like to wrestle and all we get is voids. All-in-all, we wanted to win the head-to-head (contested matches and Kenton won 4-3). But we wrestled. They had good kids at 132 and 152. Our kids competed, so we're happy with that."

Celina travels to Xenia on Saturday for an invitational.