It is officially the halfway point of the high school wrestling season and right now, the Aurora Greenmen wrestling team likes where they stand after competing in a gauntlet of tournaments. Aurora was fueled by three individual champions to take second place with a team score of 158.0 points at the Portage County Wrestling Tournament last Saturday at Ravenna’s James L. Coll Gymnasium.
“I thought overall we wrestled well,” said Coach Jeremy Johnson. “Obviously there are some matches that we feel that we want back but that is why you wrestle in those tournaments, to get good competition. But we had some people step up that are not typically in our line-up and had a good performance to help the team out and that is what is fun about tournaments, it is a team effort.”
For the second time in three years, Rootstown was crowned the team champion, but the Greenmen put forth a strong effort with three wrestlers earning individual championships and having a total of seven wrestlers place in the tournament.
Aurora’s first champion was 138-pound sophomore Grant Eaton, who went 3-0 to earn his first Portage County Tournament championship.
“Grant is a workhorse,” noted the third-year coach. “I am really proud of his effort this season and he has really been progressing. He is a sophomore who was in and out of our line-up last year, in fact we even had him bump a few weight classes at the end of the year to fill a spot and that is just the type of kid he is. It is a long time coming and he gets what he earns.”
The Greenmen’s 138-pounder dominated Ravenna sophomore Andrew Mladek in the quarterfinal bout by pinning him with 1:10 remaining in the first period, then earned a championship berth when overpowered junior Nate Marzec from Rootstown to win by a technical fall with a 17-1 decision in the semifinal.
Eaton capped off his day by outlasting Garfield sophomore Landon Andel to win 4-1 in championship.
“That is a huge match,” Johnson said. “I know Landon and I know the Garfield coaches really well so he wrestles hard and we knew it was going to be a tough competitive match but Grant did a great job sticking to a game plan in the positions he is successful in.”
144-pound junior Michael Kennedy repeated as a Portage County champion when he posted a 3-0 record to dominate his weight class.
Kennedy pinned Crestwood junior A.J. Brock with 1:18 left in the first period in the quarterfinal match, then advanced to the championship when junior Korbin Klatka from Southeast had to forfeit their semifinal match. Kennedy wrapped up his second consecutive Portage County title when he overpowered Garfield sophomore Logan Sell by pinning him with 50 seconds left in the first period.
“He got Sell by getting a cradle and ending up pinning him,” Johnson added. “It was great, he responded well after a weekend that he was not happy with the weekend prior and he is a two-time district qualifier for us, so those are the type of matches that we want early in the season because they give us a great view on what the postseason will look like.”
Aurora’s final individual champion was senior 285-pounder Matthew Copley, who went 3-0 to also defend his Portage County title.
“He wrestled some close matches early on, his first quarterfinal match was a pin but it was pretty close up until the third period and his semifinal was a one-point match that we were happy to see him finish and close out,” Johnson said.
Copley defeated Field senior Drexal McAmis in the quarterfinal when he pinned him with 1:33 remaining in the third period and advanced to the championship by defeating senior Jayce Fedor from Streetsboro by a 4-3 decision. The Aurora senior finished his day with a title by pinning Kent Roosevelt senior Noah Dunlap with only 19 seconds left in the first period to become a two-time Portage County champion.
The Greenmen also had three wrestlers finish as runners-up, junior 113-pounder Nick Turbo, 165-pound senior Cole Walton and senior 120-pounder Carter Sabatino, who all finished with 2-1 records in their respective brackets. Aurora’s final placer was junior 175-pounder A.J. Bruno who went 2-2 to take fifth place.
The Greenmen will return to the mats to compete in the annual Suburban League American Conference tournament on Saturday at Medina Highland High School beginning at 9 a.m.
