Fast starts are never a bad thing in any sport. For the Streetsboro Rockets’ wrestling a team, getting off to quick starts in dual matches makes all the difference and it showed when they defeated Metro Athletic Conference rival Woodridge 48-27 and then overpowered Field 57-22 in a tri-match last Thursday evening at Streetsboro High School.
“It’s early and we have some young kids that wrestled well. Two of my better kids had double forfeits and I would have liked to have seen them wrestle,” said Coach Mark Skonieczny. “I was looking forward to watching them but as a team overall I felt we did a great job and wrestled hard and had a nice crowd there.”
In addition to bragging rights for each Streetsboro wrestler against their conference rivals, each individual victory counted toward the MAC tournament in February. When the MAC tournament comes, each wrestler’s seeding is determined by their record against the rest of the conference in dual matches.
“You wrestle all of your dual matches and then you seed these athletes per win and per losses of who beat you from certain teams when they seed you on the tournament bracket,” noted the Rockets’ first-year coach. “To be a conference champion, you want to win these duals and win that tournament.”
In Streetsboro’s first dual match of the evening against Woodridge, it got off to a quick start by winning the first six matches to take a 33-0 lead. Freshman 106-pounder Ro Ro Walker won his match by forfeit, followed by senior Aiden Carone pinning sophomore David Genovese in the 113-pound match.
Junior 120-pounder Matt Klimak pinned junior Cameron Boone, sophomore Anthony Sindelar won the 126-pound match by forfeit, senior Jacob Joltin dominated freshman Lucas Staats by pinning him and junior 138-pounder Justin Wargo defeated senior Jared Waddell 11-7.
“That match was won because Justin attacked,” Skonieczny said. “He hand fought well, attacked ahead well, made multiple shots, finished his move and battled out of trouble. Justin wrestled a very good match. He could have easily lost that match but he gutted it out to get that win.”
The Bulldogs finally scored when junior A.J. Rickenbacker pinned freshman Jerry Benci in the 144-pound match, trimming Streetsboro’s lead to 33-6, but the Rockets won two consecutive matches with junior 150-pounder Hunter Smith defeating Rakhmatillo Tokhirjono 9-6 and junior Cohen Klimak pinning junior Mason Lorenz in the 157-pound match to take a 45-6 edge.
“Cohen looked fantastic but that is expected,” said Skonieczny. “He is definitely an up-and-coming superstar but that is to be expected. He has been down to the state meet twice and probably those two matches stuck out the most.”
The Bulldogs dominated the heavyweights with 165-pounder senior Josh Rush beating senior Chris Claar 8-7, senior Steven Duffy pinning freshman Scott Fuller in the 175-pound match, senior 190-pounder Robert Dixie pinning freshman Nate Estep and sophomore Jacob Ingleheart winning the 285-pound match by pinning senior Jayce Fedor.
The Rockets’ only victory in the heavyweights against Woodridge came when senior Joey Neal pinned freshman Xavier Covelli in the 215-pound match.
With last year’s graduating senior class being mostly from the heavyweights, Skonieczny acknowledged there is still work to be done with the upper weights.
“They are just young and it is a maturity factor. I have freshmen up there that are 14-years-old, and they are going to wrestle kids that are 17, 18 or maybe 19-years old and they battle with them and they will compete with them,” he added. “It is a confidence thing. The more they battle, the more the confidence they will get.”
After beating Woodridge, the Rockets then faced off against Field in the second dual match of the evening,
Streetsboro cruised in the light weights, with Walker winning the 106-pound match by another forfeit, Carone pinning freshman 113-pounder Broc Sclimenti, Matt dominating the 120-pound match by pinning freshman Garrett Smith, Sindelar winning the 126-pound match by another forfeit and Joltin beating junior 132-pounder Joe D’Amico 7-2, pushing the Rockets ahead 27-0.
According to Skonieczny, the Rockets are pretty deep in talent in the light weights.
“Ro Ro at 106 is ranked number one in the state. I believe Aiden at 113 is ranked top eight, Matt has a nice shot to get down to Columbus and the same thing with Anthony who is ranked at the top,” he said. “All of those kids right there are going to be hard to beat.”
Wargo won the 138-match by a forfeit, sophomore 144-pounder Cam Ragowski pinned senior Mason Long, Smith also won his match by forfeit and Cohen was crowned the victor in his match by another forfeit.
The Falcons excelled in the heavyweights with senior Brady McCoy beating Claar by a 17-6 major decision, followed by senior John Riley capturing victory in the 175-poound match by pinning Fuller, sophomore 190-pounder Daniel Hudson pinned Estep and senior Will Neinhuis pinned Fedor in the 285-pound match.
Streetsboro’s only heavyweight victory came courtesy of Neal, who won his match by forfeit.
Before celebrating the Christmas holiday, the Rockets will compete at the 56th Hudson Holiday Tournament starting this Friday at 5 p.m.
