McGuffey’s depth overwhelms Rockets
JEFFERSON — Luck was not on the side of the Jefferson-Morgan wrestling squad Tuesday night against defending section champion McGuffey.
The Rockets had one of their senior captains out due to injury, the home team had to forfeit three matches and in the final six bouts J-M had to wrestle up a weight class.
With all of that against J-M, it fell to McGuffey 63-17.
“We are young and inexperienced in a lot of spots,” J-M coach Mike Lesko said. “McGuffey has 30 kids on their team and their depth is daunting. I mean how are you suppose to match-up against a team when they have three or four kids that can wrestle in a weight class. We’ve got some young kids out there and I appreciate their effort.
“We knew it was going to be a down year. We lost a lot last year due to graduation and we didn’t have the turnout I would like coming back. We have kids walking this school that didn’t come out for the team because they said it was tough.
“Some kids want things to be easy, but I won’t back down on our conditioning. I’m not going to back down on that because it’s been working for us for I don’t know how many years. Our system works and when the kids buy into that we are going to be successful. We got shellacked tonight and we have to rebound from this.”
The match started at 170 and the Highlanders (1-0, 1-0) received back-to-back forfeits to Luke Shingle (170) and Connor Thompson (182).
J-M’s Billy Bowlen cut the lead in half with a first-period pin at 195.
“Billy has been with us for a number of years,” Lesko said. “He’s already in mid-season form and is comfortable at 182 already. He wants to win a state title and he’s so mature about it. He knows what his goals are and he is well prepared every match. He brings the right attitude and his work ethic is unbelievable.”
McGuffey responded with a first-period pin at 220 and went up 24-6 after receiving another forfeit at 285.
The Rockets made it 24-12 when Mason Palmer garnered a forfeit victory at 106.
After McGuffey stretched its lead to 36-12 with back-to-back, second-period pins, J-M’s Gavin Teasdale wrestled up at 126 and scored a 25-10 technical fall.
Both Teasdale and Bowlen were coming off first-place finishes in their respective weight classes over the weekend at the Eastern Tournament at Gateway High School.
As a team, the Rockets finished 12th out of 21 teams in the tournament.
The Highlanders won the final five bouts via a major decision at 132, a technical fall at 138 and three straight first-period pins.
McGuffey won both matches a year ago against the Rockets with a 40-35 triumph in the section opener and a 42-27 victory in the Section 2-AA Championships.
J-M will be in action at Mapletown next Wednesday at 7 p.m.