LINDEN — For a second-straight season, the Crawfordsville wrestling team earned a county title on Saturday.
This time, in dominating fashion — defeating North Montgomery 68-12 and Southmont 45-21.
“It feels great,” Crawfordsville coach Aaron Keller said of the back-to-back titles.
The Athenians jumped out to a 15-0 lead against the Mounties by winning the first four matches of the contest.
“It was good to get our momentum going, because they are always tough, and we always know it’s going to be a dog fight with Southmont,” Keller said. “They are well coached and tough-nosed, and we just came out and put a few matches together and pulled it out.”
Southmont responded with a fall, but Crawfordsville came back with a pair of pins to push the lead out to 24-6 through seven of the 14 weight classes.
“They’ve got a good team, and we had some weight classes where we didn’t quite compete as well as I think we should,” longtime and hall of fame Southmont coach Jamie Welliever said. “It’s a dual meet, everybody has to perform, and we can’t give up pins.”
Crawfordsville produced 10 champions, and dominated the upper weight classes. Carlos Gutierrez (113), Armando Munez (126), Blayze Robbins (132), Landon Vaught (144), Aiden Hutchison (150), Kollin Moore (157), Jaziel Gil Herrera (165), Braeden Hites (175), Diego Castillo (215) and Keegan Cokel (285) all won individual titles.
Southmont beat North Montgomery 71-5 and won individual titles by Lucas Scott (106), Camden Laney (138) and Kooper Charles (190).
“We are learning, and this group is getting better all the time, but we’ve got plenty of room to improve,” Welliever added.
North Montgomery had just one champion — Kadyn Cohee at 120.
“It was a rough go at it,” North Montgomery assistant coach Trizton Carson said. “We’ve got some inexperienced wrestlers that are just trying to battle and fight their way through it. We will get it figured out.”
On the girls side, Southmont did not field a team, and North Montgomery easily beat Crawfordsville 42-6. Winners in contested matches included Skylar Hall, Haylee Gemino, and Julia Shea. Teo Brooks was the lone winner for the Athenians, with a pinfall at 105.
