By Gary R. Rasberry
grasberry@dailystandard.com COLDWATER -- It was a tale of two mats on Tuesday night as Coldwater hosted Troy and Tippecanoe in a tri-match held in the nostalgic Pit.
To speed up the event, two mats were used. One mat was for the lighter weights up to 140 pounds with the other mat used for the heavier weights.
Going into the final round, Coldwater held leads on both Troy and Tipp with Troy facing the lighter weights and Tipp taking on the heavies.
In the end, Coldwater beat the Red Devils from Tipp City 49-24 while the smaller Troy guys helped the Trojans to a 40-24 win over the Cavaliers.
Cavalier coach Chuck Alig had to make several changes to the lineup in the lighter weights with veterans Kenny Platfoot and Marty Hemmelgarn both unable to go. Alig went with freshman Ben Heyne in place of Platfoot and Alex Uhlenhake at 135 pounds in place of Hemmelgarn. "Lower weights, we're just young," said Alig. "They're just learning. They'll get better, but they're going to take their lumps to reach that success."
Uhlenhake, part of a family that has had plenty of wrestlers on the mats, came up big in his first match of the day against Jordan Krebs of Tippecanoe. After Krebs got a reversal to tie the match at 4-all in the waning seconds of the third period, Uhlenhake recovered and immediately went for the takedown in the opening seconds of overtime, scoring the 6-4 win.
"Alex wrestled a great first match," said Alig. "With all those Uhlenhakes around, he's wrestling all the time. He knows how to wrestle, but he has some better kids ahead of him. The other guy tired out a bit and Alex had plenty of energy left."
As Coldwater went into the final round of lightweight matches against Troy, the Cavs held a 21-10 lead. Austin Abels made it 24-10 with a 5-4 decision over Dee Franklin at 103 pounds, but after that, the Trojans took over. Both Jarred Kohn and Cory Knoth were beat by pins. Heyne also suffered a pin at 125 pounds. Gregg Homan stopped the pin parade by Troy but suffered a 4-1 loss to Gabe Franklin to make the score 31-24 with two matches left.
Troy sealed up the match when Eric Lamm pinned Uhlenhake in 49 seconds to make the score 37-24. Drew Mastrino ended the day for Troy with a 7-6 decision over Ryan Muhlenkamp.
For the wrestlers at 145 pounds and higher, the only lumps taken were the ones flattening the mat as they took their opponents down. Against Tipp, the heavier weights only gave up six points in the final seven matches as Coldwater wrestlers scored four pins, with three taking under 40 seconds to achieve.
The heavier weights went a combined 11-3 against the two visitors. Going 2-0 on the day were Bryce Schlater, Andy Schmidt, Brian Uhlenhake, Kyle Uhlenhake, Kyle Oswalt and Craig Homan.
Oswalt needed just a total of 3:13 of mat time to earn pins on Thursday, putting his career win total at 112, just seven shy of Aaron Alig's career mark of 119.
"Our upper weights are tough," said coach Alig. "We can go against about anyone, I think, and hold our own ground. That's where we have to make our move."
Coldwater returns to action Tuesday for a dual meet against Paulding starting at 7 p.m. |
