Wrestling

Athenians, Chargers wrestling look to reload

Posted

Last season North Montgomery won its fourth-straight Sagamore Conference title, and fourth IHSAA Sectional title of the decade. The Chargers continued a rich-tradition of sending wrestlers to the state finals, with a record four qualifying wrestlers, and two state-placers.

North graduated seven seniors in May, and second-year coach Bryce McCoy knows it will be a process to reload and rebuild.

“We graduated half of our starting line-up from last year, so the biggest thing is that the young kids that are now thrust into the starting line-up must grow up quickly, and be able to compete at the varsity level,” he said.

Drew Webster, who placed fifth in the state at 220 pounds last year, enters his senior season ranked No. 1. James McClerkin, Baydin Hall, Dawson McCloud, and Jacob Braun all return for the Chargers.

McCoy’s hope is to see continued improvement throughout the season from his young and inexperienced team.

“Hopefully our kids can continue to improve on a consistent basis as the season goes along,” he said. “We have a lot of freshmen/first time varsity wrestlers, so its my goal to help them see improvement in themselves as the season goes along.”

Marissa Moffitt, Gage Galloway, Cailin and Catie Campbell, Dylan Braun, Todd Laffoon, and Nick Rice will all compete to fill out North’s lineup.

The Chargers open today at the Parke Heritage Invite at Turkey Run Middle School.

Athenians have to
replace seniors

Crawfordsville graduated nine seniors from last year’s 22-7 team, but longtime coach Chris Ervin is excited to see a lot of new faces in the lineup this season

“We did have good numbers last year, so we have a lot of kids who got varsity experience as backups as well as JV matches,” he said.

Eric Demoret, Ethan Conkright, Alex Brown, Clayton Owens, Richard Pan, and Collin Rusk all return as varsity letter winners from a season ago, where the Athenians placed third at the Sagamore Conference meet, and fourth at the sectional. Ervin expects Moises Mora and Kalob Brown to contribute after gaining time as reserves last season. Freshmen Calvin Dittmar and Isaac Rogers, sophomores Edwin Gil Herrera, Sebastian Meraz, Melissa Mota, and senior Tyeson Hendon are all expected to see varsity time as well.

“We will be young, but I like the kids that we have,” Ervin said. “They have been working hard and have great attitudes. My number one goal for them is to be competitive in every meet and finish with a winning dual meet season. Beyond that, we want to improve continually, and wrestle our best at County, Conference, and Sectional.”

Crawfordsville opened the season with a 45-29 loss to Greencastle on Thursday, and is back in action on Thursday, Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. at Faith Christian.


X