Staff Reports
EVANSVILLE — Two Columbus East wrestlers punched their tickets to next weekend’s state finals with top-four finishes in Saturday’s Evansville Semistate.
Junior Sam Morrill at 160 pounds and senior Noah White at 182 both finished third in their respective weight classes. They’ll compete in in the Round of 16 Friday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with a chance to earn three more matches on Saturday.
Morrill won his first match by pin in 31 seconds and scored an 8-1 decision in the quarterfinal, known as the “ticket round.” He then fell to Evansville Mater Dei’s Eli Dickens 10-4 in the semifinals before beating Southridge’s Sam Schroeder 6-1 in the third-place match.
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White won his first match by technical fall and his second by pin in 4:14. He then edged 9-8 by Center Grove’s Drake Buchanan in the semifinals before pinning Terre Haute South’s Brendan McPike in 4:25 in the third-place match.
“Our expectation is even with all the kids we were taking to advance,” East coach Chris Cooper said. “A couple things didn’t go our way. The competition is so tough down here. The two kids that did advance, Sam and Noah, had amazing days. For them to place third sets things up a lot better for next weekend.”
The Olympians had three wrestlers — Noah Lykins (113), Jacob Shaver (138) and Kade Law (152) — fall just short or a trip to state after dropping their ticket round matches. Liam Krueger (106), Tyler Williams (145), Shawn Tyler (220) and Ashton Hartwell (285) all lost in the first round.
“For two of our seniors, Jacob Shaver and Shawn Tyler, that’s always tough, but they had fantastic seasons and just came up a little short,” Cooper said. “But I’m real proud of the seasons they had.”
Columbus North saw both of its wrestlers fall in the ticket round. Keandre Watson (138) and Nick Holt (170) each won their first-round matches before falling in the quarterfinals.
Brown County’s Sam Allen (285) also fell in the ticket round. The Eagles’ David Tucker (145) and Evan Bradshaw (195) lost in the first round.
Jennings County’s lone semistate qualifier, Cameron Woodard, lost in the first round at 182.
