FRANKLIN — Greenfield-Central avenged a loss to the No. 1 seed and top-ranked team in the state, went 3-1 on the day and came away with a third-place finish in the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association Class 3A Team State Duals at Franklin Community High School Saturday.
The tournament is a yearly event put on by the coaches association and not sanctioned by the IHSAA. State wrestling programs are broken down, by enrollment, in four classes. Eight schools either qualify or are invited. The Cougars got an invitation two weeks prior to the event and took advantage of a great opportunity to show off their skills and improve as a team.
“I don’t know if it was our best day, but we wrestled hard,” Greenfield-Central coach Josh Holden said. “We lost to the eventual champs (Mishawaka, in the semifinals). We beat the No. 1 seed (Roncalli) that had beat us earlier. We beat the runner-up (Columbus East) to get in to the tournament. We beat the No. 8 and No. 6 seeds. So, we beat half the field either (Saturday or earlier this season). That’s a good sign for a group of kids that only have two seniors in the lineup.”
The third-seeded Cougars opened the day with a 42-22 win over sixth-seed Hobart. They lost to the eventual champs No. 2 seed Mishawaka 40-28. They followed with a 36-35 victory over the Rebels, who had beaten the Cougars 42-27 on Wednesday.
In the third-place match, Greenfield-Central defeated Terre Haute South 38-31.
“Every dual we went into, different guys would lose but different guys would win,” Holden said of how each wrestler was able to contribute throughout the day. “We’d have guys lose close matches, but guys that won got falls. We just kind of kept trucking along. Mishawaka, today, was just better than us. They were older, more experienced and a little more physical. We’re going to mature and are going to get better. We’ve got a lot of hungry kids that are hard workers. We’ll get better and hopefully we’ll be back there next year.”
Jett McGuire (106) and Silas Frye (182) both went 4-0.
Lincoln Parsons (113), Cohen Hager (145), Clay Guenin (170) and Brayden Flener (285) all went 3-1.
For Guenin, it was his first loss of the season. He opened the day dropping a 5-3 decision to Hobart’s Aidan Costello. He bounced back and won his final three matches, all by pin.
“It was a good battle (with Costello),” Holden said. “It wasn’t our day (Saturday). We’ll be ready if we see him again. (Guenin is) mentally tough. He’s not going to let a loss crack him. He got right back on track.”
Frosh Tristen Lanum had one of the team’s biggest wins of the day. His victory, by pin, over Terre Haute South’s Brandon Freeman secured the victory in the third-place match.
Twelve different wrestlers won at least one match. Eight wrestlers won multiple matches.
