PLYMOUTH – The only way to describe it is that Plymouth’s Rockie wrestlers took an NLC win last night by the equivalent of a full court, last second, shot over Concord.
Down by a score of 31-25 headed to the last match of the night – the 160 weight class with Graham Calhoun taking on Azael Acosta – the only hope the Rockies had was for Calhoun to get a pin in his match to tie the score at 31. Somehow in the closing seconds of his match Calhoun did just that and sent the decision to the IHSAA tie breaker criteria.
The two teams were still tied after seven of those criteria, but on the eighth – most first points scored in individual matches – the Rockies were declared the winner.
“There are a lot of things that the first point dictates, for example in an overtime the guy that scores first has choice,” said Plymouth coach Bob Read. “The thing that won it for us is our kid at 120 (Cei Bowen) got beat, but he scored the first take down. If he loses that first take down and then loses the match we lose.”
The Rockies were moving wrestlers around weight classes and at one class not being able to field a wrestler was a problem.
“Having to forfeit at (weight class 182) hurt us,” said Read. “We have a guy there. He’ll be back in the lineup but in a duel meet format you can’t afford a forfeit.”
Plymouth dominated the top three weight classes with Kendall Himes winning his heavyweight match in just :14. In the lighter classes the Minutemen had the upper hand.
“Thats kind of the way it’s been all year long,” said Read. “Concord did a great job keeping matches tight. We let 152 (Nathan Craft) get away from us but that’s our (normal) 145 guy. The Craft kid wrestles his fanny off and makes one mistake and loses the match. We were right there.”
The Rockies stand at 18-10 on the year and 4-3 in the NLC. Read knows his team is not where they want to be but in a good position.
“We have a lot of improvement to do in the next couple weeks,” he said. “We are off Saturday which is good to have that break. It’s grueling going every weekend. We come back and go into the NLC which is a meat grinder – no doubt about that – but we have some kids that can do some damage.”
“We have some really, really good teams coming in for sectional. Our kids will get better in the next two weeks,” said Read. “We talk about working on getting better. You fix this little thing, this little thing, and this little thing, those things can set you on a different path.”
Results
106: Christian Pfeiffer-­Laguerre (CONC) over Dominic Smith (PLYM) (MD 15-­2)
113: Andrew BonDurant(CONC) over Max Howard (PLYM) (Fall 1:48)
120: Cameron Galvan (CONC) over Cei Bowen (PLYM) (Dec 6-­4)
126: Zane DeVault (PLYM) over Logan Lawson (CONC) (Fall 1:25)
132: Jordan Howard (PLYM) over Kendrick Jordan (CONC) (Dec 7-­5)
138: Brendan Stockman (CONC) over Hardy Chapman (PLYM) (Dec 11-­5)
145: Gavin Banks (PLYM) over Kevin Sibal (CONC) (MD 12-­2)
152: Bailey Stockman (CONC) over Nathan Craft (PLYM) (Fall 4:04)
160: Graham Calhoun (PLYM) over Azael Acosta (CONC) (Fall 4:25)
170: Eliut Ramirez (CONC) over Trystan VanderAa (PLYM) (Dec 9-­3)
182: Adrian Ubiles (CONC) over (PLYM) (For.)
195: Sam Stayton (PLYM) over Brandon Powell (CONC) (Dec 8-­2)
220: Nate LaFree (PLYM) over John Doe (CONC) (Dec 5-­2)
285: Kendall Himes (PLYM) over Caleb Adams (CONC) (Fall 0:22)