The local wrestling scene will be well represented this weekend at the New Castle semi-state.
A total of eight area wrestlers qualified by finishing in the top-four at the IHSAA Regional at North Montgomery on Saturday.
Crawfordsville punched four wrestlers through, all of which placed third.
“It’s great getting four wrestlers out to semi-state,” Athenian coach Aaron Keller said. “Obviously we would have preferred more, but it just wasn’t meant to be this time. The semifinal round was tough for us, but I was proud of all four of them coming back and winning third-place.”
Landon Vaught and Braeden Hites both suffered semi-final losses after taking early leads in their matches. Vaught responded with a 10-4 decision win over Hamilton Southeastern’s Cade Casler to place third at 144. Hites picked up a third period fall over Westfield’s Eli Turner to finish third at 175.
Aiden Hutchison beat North Vermillion’s Andrew Botner 11-10 in the third-place match at 150, while Taiga Koyanagi earned a 16-4 major decision win over Hamilton Southeastern’s Cale Beattie to take third at 106.
“The goal now is to come back stronger, fix our mistakes, and be ready to compete at semi-state,” Keller said.
Southmont’s Lukas Scott won his first two matches of the day at 106 over Sheridan’s Camdyn Vespa and Hamilton Southeastern’s Beattie, before falling to Westfield’s Connor Maddox in the finals.
“He had a good week of practice and kind of refocused on getting after things a little bit cleaner. I thought his attack was really good,” Southmont coach Jamie Welliever said.
Camden Laney won his opening match at 138 over Carmel’s Tyler Elliott, before losing to Westfield’s Alec Washburn in the semi-finals. Laney rebounded for a 6-3 win in the third-place match over Lebanon’s Seth Wilson.
“Camden looked good,” Welliever said. “That was a tough weight class even last week. Third-place and he’s wrestling well.”
Fountain Central’s Dakoda Willoughby won his opening round match at 144 by tech fall over Fishers’ Zeke Kramer, before beating Hamilton Southeastern’s Casler 10-8 in the semi-finals. Willoughby fell to Westfield’s Jake Saez 11-5 in the finals.
Dallas Simmons won his opening round match over Westfield’s Trevor Humburg 11-5, and after losing his semi-final match, placed third at 126 with a 10-1 major decision win over Hamilton Southeastern’s Aidan Smalley.
