NORTH CANTON: Athletic success stories have been few and far between recently for North.
Victories have been hard to come by in nearly every sport for the Vikings.
Saturday night, North senior Josh Miller turned in a memorable performance, winning a Division II sectional wrestling championship at Hoover High School.
“I’m the pride of North High,” Miller said after winning a title at 170 pounds.
“I’m hoping and praying to get to that first- and second-place match next week in Alliance. I want to try to place high at district.”
Miller upped his record to 25-7 this season.
“I think this just shows the amount of effort he puts into wrestling,” North coach Ted Troxell said. “He pinned his way through the tournament. His heart is in the sport.”
Coventry scored 196.5 points to win the Division II sectional for the fourth consecutive season. St. Vincent-St. Mary won seven of the 14 weight classes and finished second with 182.5 points.
The top four in each weight class advance to the Alliance district tournament next week.
“We have eight advancing to district,” Coventry coach Keith Shinn said. “That is great for the kids. We put a special focus on this time of the year. They came out and wrestled hard. We had some nice performances from our champions Brandon Rang [at 152] and Jeff Mongold [at 160].”
Shinn said Comets junior Travis Gosnell (285) was lost for the season Saturday due to an injury while warming up. He initially was injured six weeks ago.
“The injury to Travis Gosnell hurts,” Shinn said. “He [entered the tournament with] 36 wins, 33 pins. It hurt our team. He is a big leader on our team. With him out, everyone was affected by it, but we know we have to be ready for Alliance. We will have another hard week of practice to get prepared for that.”
All seven Fighting Irish wrestlers who were in a championship match Saturday won.
“Last week after we wrestled Walsh and Hoban, I said the new season starts in terms of records don’t mean anything and past accomplishments are great, but they are in the past,” St. V-M coach Anthony Gary said.
The seven Irish champions are freshmen John Chell (106) and Dre’k Brumley (285), sophomores Walt Gibson (126), Ryan Skonieczny (132), Aaron Adkins (182), junior Mike Rix (120) and senior Ray Stone (220).
“All of the kids wrestled well,” Gary said. “I don’t have anything bad to say about any of them. Now, we just need to pick up the pace because the competition will get stiffer each week. Our goal is to get each of these seven finalists to Columbus. I think it is very possible.”
Other Division II champs are Canton South junior D.J. Schoeppner (113), Northwest junior Kyle Harris (138), Fairless junior Tyler Shephard (145) and Triway senior Zach Zody (195).
“It is all about winning each week and advancing,” Gary said. “You want to get one week closer to Columbus and get on the podium.”
Perry wins Division I
Perry posted a 6-1 record in championship matches to win a Division I sectional with 278 points.
Barberton, which went 1-8 in championship matches, finished second with 217 points.
The top four in each weight class advance to the Mentor district tournament.
The six Perry champions are sophomores David Bavery (106) and Isaac Best (132), junior JoJo Tayse (195) and seniors Mitch Newhouse (138), Zack Dailey (152) and Josh Arrendale (160).
“Overall, I thought we had a good night and had 12 advance,” Perry coach Dave Riggs said. “We went 11-3 for the night. I thought we did a good job at getting ready for the district. This is by far the toughest sectional. I am pretty pleased.”
Massillon junior Ivan McClay (120) and senior Lane Louive (182) each won titles. GlenOak also had two champions: seniors Jake Cuenot (220) and Derrick Everrett (285).
Other Division I champs are Barberton senior Cobey Fehr (126), Lake sophomore Alec Cotton (113), Jackson junior Lucas Marcelli (145) and Canton Timken senior Rashad Howell (170).
Michael Beaven can be reached at 330-996-3829 or mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the high school blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/varsity_letters/. Also follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MBeavenABJ. Follow ABJ sports on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sports.abj.
