Eagle Wrestlers Conference Champs

Wednesday, 21 December 2011 5:55

NECC Wrestling Champs (The 2011-2012 NECC Wrestling Champions are your Churubusco Eagles. The Eagles went undefeated throughout the Conference schedule going 9-0 and brought home the NECC title for the second time, the other being 1999.) photo by hiatt

LARGER IMAGE

by Don Hiatt

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thursday night, at Westview, the Churubusco Eagle wrestlers completed one their goals for this season, they were crowned Northeast Corner Conference Champions. The Eagle wrestlers finished the Conference schedule undefeated with nine wins. “It feels good to be Conference champs,” said an excited Churubusco Coach Sam Riesen. “Pretty good way to start our season. Hopefully we can keep our successes rolling as we continue to see tougher competition.”

The night opened with Travis Glick pinning his opponent in the 160 pound weight class. Tyler Nevil lost by a decision and then Sam Siddons (182), Jason Nicodemus (195) and Gunnar Barnhart (220) received forfeits to give the Eagles a 24-3 lead. Eric Kuznar won by a pin and Alex Lich received a forfeit to extend the lead to 36-3. The Eagles forfeited the 113 weight class but needed just six more points to clinch the victory. They got those points as Chase Downing pinned his opponent in 1:45 to seal the win. Shroyer won by a forfeit. Austin Boggess lost by a pin in 39 seconds and Clint Bechtold was pinned in the second round, making the score 48-21 Churubusco. Adam Boggess won by a forfeit and Brandon Wormcastle finished the night by pinning his opponent in 41 seconds. The Eagles won 60-21 over the Panthers and finished the Conference season without a loss.

“Second time in school history we have been undefeated in the Conference,” Coach Riesen informed me. “The first time since 1999 and there has been a lot of good wrestling teams with Coach Kimmel and Coach Strayer here before me. They have been very successful and had a lot of good wrestlers. For this to only be the second team to ever win Conference in school history, it’s pretty impressive.”

On Saturday the Eagles went to Carroll for a dual match with several outstanding wrestling schools. Elkhart Central, Garrett, Northrop, Eastside and the host school Carroll were on the card for the day’s event.

Churubusco opened with Northrop and fell behind early as the Bruins jumped out to a 30-0 lead after five matches. But the Eagles rallied back as they won the next seven matches beginning with Austin Boggess’ 7-2 decision. Lyle McParlan then won by a 10-3 decision and the momentum began to swing the Eagles’ way. Adam Boggess won by a pin in 54 seconds and Wormcastle won by a major decision 16-6 to cut the lead to 30-16 Bruins. The rest of the matches would be decided by pins with the Eagles winning the next three as Glick, Nicodemus and Siddons all pinned their opponents. Brian Richardson lost in the third round by a pin and Barnhart pinned his Bruin opponent in the second round to give Churubusco the 40-36 win.

The second match of the day was against Elkhart Central and it was back and forth throughout the contest. The Eagles came out on the short side losing 37-35.

“We didn’t come out ready this morning,” stated Coach Riesen. “We were able to beat Northrop this morning, but we lost to Elkhart Central by two points. If one kid doesn’t get pinned that could have really helped out our record this season.”

Carroll was next for the Eagles and the Chargers jumped out to a 16-0 lead by winning the first four matches. The Eagles won four of the next six matches, all by decision to trim the lead to 25-12. Carroll won three of the last four matches to win 40-18.

Churubusco dominated Eastside in the fourth match of the day. They won the first ten matches to jump to a 60-0 lead. They lost the last three matches and the 113 weight class was a double forfeit.

Shroyer and Austin Boggess started the Garrett match with pins and McParlan won by a decision to give the Eagles a 15-0 lead to begin the meet. Wormcastle won by a decision 7-2 followed by Glick and Nicodemus pins putting the Eagles up 36-3. Churubusco lost four of the last six but finished with Downing pinning his opponent in the last match of the day.

“When we got to the Carroll match, we really didn’t wrestle that bad, but the score doesn’t show that,” recalls Coach Riesen. “We had several that were one or two points that could have went really either way. We didn’t get pinned against Carroll and I really thought we did wrestle pretty well against them. We won five matches and we lost three that were by one and you win those matches and it’s a different story. That’s what it takes to be a sectional champion team and I think our kids saw that. We then went on to beat Eastside and Garrett. Anytime we can beat Garrett that is a great program is big win for us, we will take that and we were happy to get a win there. There are plenty of things we can improve on. If our kids continue to come out hard and continue to work to improve we can do a lot of good things this season and this could just be the start of a really successful season.”

The Eagles will travel to Rochester this Friday to compete in their Invitational. Wrestling begins at 9:00 a.m. ending with the finals in the afternoon. This is a very competitive meet and is well worth the drive.

Click here to view more wrestling photos