GROVE – The Jay Bulldogs built a big lead then held off a late Grove rally to defeat the Ridgerunners on the wrestling mat for the second time this season by a score of 38-33 Tuesday.
The Bulldogs won five of the first six matches to build a 31-6, with the Ridgerunners getting their only points on a forfeit at 120 pounds. Treyson and Trestin January got things started for Jay with pins at 106 and 113 followed by the forfeit at 120 to make it 12-6.
The next match would prove to be a difference maker in the dual. Grove’s Tristan Decatur took command early of the bout at 126 pounds, taking down Jay’s River Martinez before turning Martinez to his back. But the Jay sophomore managed to flip the script in an instant, reversing Decatur to his back for the big first period pin.
“If we flip the results at 126, we win the dual,” Grove head coach John Henry Ward said. “We’re sitting there about to pin the guy; we talk all the time about not jumping over, staying teed out [to the side]. We make a little mistake there, get too anxious, and it cost us.”
The Bulldogs would go on to win the next three matches to build their largest lead of the night. Derick Shrum followed Martinez’s pin with a 6-0 decision over Grove’s John Tune at 132 pounds. Cole Wheeler followed with a first period fall at 138 and Brian Deleon won a 9-1 major decision over Josh Perez at 145 pounds.
Drew Hardy began the Grove turnaround at 152 pounds. After falling behind 4-0 in the first period, Hardy used two inside cradles for five near-fall points in the second to take a 5-4 lead. After getting an escape and a takedown to take control of the match early in the third period, the Grove junior finished things off with a fall with 56 seconds left in the match to make it 31-12, avenging an earlier loss to Jay’s Kaleb Reece at the Bulldog Duals.
After Remington White recorded an 18-5 major decision for Jay at 160, Grove’s Anthony Krause got some revenge of his own against Jay’s John Williams. After a wild first period in which both wrestlers recorded back points and Williams came out with a 7-5 lead, Krause got a reversal then used a power half to get the pin midway through the second period to make it 35-18 in favor of the Bulldogs.
But hopes of a Grove comeback would be short-lived as Jeremiah Sirmans’s 6-2 decision over Dylan Johnson at 182 pounds made it 38-18 and clinched the dual for the Bulldogs.
Benny Steffenson received a forfeit at 195 while Bill Nixon built a 5-0 lead before pinning Chance Johnson with a cradle at 220. Colby Layman finished the night with a 3-0 decision over Jay’s Jake Ellis at heavyweight.
“We reversed two matches with Krause and Drew pinning kids that beat us [last time],” Ward said. “The rest of the kids wrestled hard. I like the way our kids are wrestling right now.”
