NORTH VERNON — The Columbus East wrestlers have put up some pretty big performances in the Jennings County Sectional the past two years, but Saturday’s effort may have been their best yet.
The Olympians put 13 wrestlers in the finals, winning 10 of those weight classes, and advanced all 14 to the Jeffersonville Regional. East ran away with the team title, scoring 324 points to 183 for runner-up Seymour and 161 1/2 for the host Panthers.
“Even the four matches we lost, I feel like there’s definitely opportunity to make some of those up,” East coach Chris Cooper said. “The kids worked incredibly hard, and the results are just evidence of that.”
Noah Lykins kicked off things for the Olympians with a title in the 106-pound class. He was joined atop the podium by Nate John (120), Jeremy Clark (126), Joey Gordon (132), Cayden Rooks (138), Kade Law (145) Jake Schoenegge (152), Nick South (170), Noah White (182) and Jacob Bolte (220).
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Rooks, who posted three first-period pins on his way to the title, captured his fourth consecutive sectional crown.
“It was awesome,” Rooks said. “Everybody on the team looked really good today. We had 13 kids in the finals, and that’s crazy.”
East’s Kenton Wilson (113), Sam Morrill (160) and Shawn Tyler (285) all finished second, and Aaron Cepeda (195) took third. The top four in each weight class advanced to the regional, which will be Saturday at Jeffersonville.
Columbus North, which finished fifth as a team with 119 1/2 points, had one individual champion. Morgan Smith scored an 8-6 decision against Wilson in the 113-pound final.
The Bull Dogs went 5 for 5 in third-place matches. Joshua Nelson (106), Keandre Watson (145), Jared Slocum (160), Nick Holt (170) and Bradley Gutierrez (285) all finished third.
“We wrestled tough,” North coach Matt Joyce said. “We didn’t come out firing as hard as I would have like to see in the first round, but we made up for it in the next rounds after that. It says a lot about the team and mentality to go get those third-place wins.”
Jennings had a three runners-up. Sam Bennett was pinned by South in the 170-pound final, Cameron Woodard was edged 4-3 by White in the 182-pound title match and Logan Askew was pinned by Seymour’s Alejandro Sachinas in the 195-pound final.
Joey Moran (138), Rusty Vaughn (152) finished third for the Panthers. Blake Skinner (132) took fourth.
“Our goal was to do better,” Jennings coach Howard Jones said. “We wanted to do better than our seeds. We did that in several spots, but we did not do it in three spots. The kids wrestled hard. We can’t complain a whole lot. We’re going to go another week and go from there.”
Brown County advanced xx to the regional. David Tucker fell to Clark 4-2 in the 126-pound final, and Bryce Denton lost to Gordon by technical fall in the 132-pound final to finish second. Brandon Leslie (113) took third, and Christian Fouts (170) was fourth to also advance to regional.
