Streetsboro Rockets’ 120-pound sophomore Anthony Sindelar had a lot to prove this season after he missed his freshman year with a shoulder injury. The Rockets’ sophomore achieved that goal when he recorded a 3-2 record to take seventh place at the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division II state wrestling tournament last weekend at The Ohio State University’s Jerome Schottenstein Center in Columbus.
“It feels good that I won my seventh place match,” Sindelar said. “I hoped I could take a higher place. It meant a lot because of everything that happened. It has been a tough year and I ended up overcoming it to place at the state tournament.”
After going 2-2 in the first two days at the OHSAA tournament, Sindelar had already earned a podium berth but still had a chance to finish strong in his seventh place bout last Sunday afternoon.
His final match was against Franklin sophomore Dareyan Edgar and he wasted little time attacking to take a 4-1 advantage in the first period by recording a pair of takedowns.
In the second period, Sindelar stayed in control by scoring another takedown, but Edgar stayed alive by recording an escape. Edgar had a chance to mount a comeback when he wrestled from the top in the final period but Sindelar was an immovable, refusing to let his opponent turn him on his back.
“It’s good that I am tough on the bottom and the turn,” Sindelar noted. “I have to work on getting out and getting one or two points.”
Ever since the Metro Athletic Conference tournament, Sindelar has had a different mindset entering the postseason. He said things changed for him when his grandmother passed away while he competed at the MAC tournament.
He said that although his grandmother was not an avid wrestling fan, she was one of his biggest supporters and he dedicated the rest of his season to wrestling in her memory.
“She died when I was wrestling and I ended up winning that tournament,” he said. “It was doing this for her, so it gave me a lot of motivation to push through and place at the state tournament.”
Sindelar earned a state berth by scoring several upset victories at the district tournament and he continued that trend when he outlasted junior Lyric Dickerson 9-6 from Miami Trace in the preliminaries last Friday for his first career state tournament victory.
“It’s really big,” Sindelar said after his victory in the preliminary round. “It was the first match I had coming up. He is a tough kid. I knew it would be a dogfight in my first match because it was the most important match either way.”
Sindelar added that he had grown accustomed to being underestimated throughout the season and used it to his advantage. Once the postseason started, Sindelar became more aggressive on offense and his adjustments were successful.
“We talked about it all week,” said Coach Mark Skonieczny. “We knew that when you get down here, there are no second chances. He put it all on the line. It’s either go 100% or you go home. If Anthony gave 100% and walked off that mat with a loss, then we knew we got beat by a better guy.”
On Saturday, Sindelar was ousted from the championship bracket when Galion sophomore Gradey Harding overpowered him by a 13-4 major decision.
The Streetsboro sophomore rebounded in the blood round, beating Peyton Costa 10-3 to earn an All-Ohioan berth.
“It means a lot,” Sindelar said after his victory in the second round of the consolation bracket. “I am here and just wrestling my butt off and am now on the podium. It feels amazing. I watched some film on the kid I wrestled and knew what he did and stayed away from the things that he did well.”
With only a minute of regulation in the first period of the consolation bracket, Sindelar had built 7-0 lead by scoring a takedown and a pair of near falls and never surrendered his advantage.
Sindelar’s bid to advance to the third place match ended when he lost 5-2 against Wauseon junior Zavian LaFountain in the consolation quarterfinal bout but still had one match left.
Sindelar finished off his first appearance at the OHSAA state tournament on a high note by winning his final match and now looks ahead the next season.
After being restricted in his offseason training because of his shoulder injury last summer, Sindelar plans to train harder this summer without restriction.
“It will help a lot knowing that the stuff I did not do well this season, I can work on in the offseason,” Sindelar said.
