It was a cold night in Washington Court House Thursday, but that did not deter a large crowd from coming out to support their favorite school as the Blue Lion wrestling team hosted defending Frontier Athletic Conference champions Miami Trace.
The Panthers won the match, 48-16, improving to 5-0 in FAC duals.
The Blue Lions are now 3-1 in the FAC with a dual remaining against Jackson.
It was Senior Night at Washington High School, and the program recognized its three seniors: Jenna Kuhn, Branton Dawes and Mason Mustain.
Kuhn (113) won her match by forfeit, Dawes (126) won by pin in the first period over Garrett Carson and Mustain won a decision over Stephen Lehr at heavyweight.
At 106 pounds, Miami Trace’s Lyric Dickerson pinned Xayvion Johns in the first period.
At 120 pounds, Corbin Melvin of Miami Trace pinned Talon Freese in the first period.
At 132 pounds, Miami Trace’s Riston LeBeau won his match by decision over Austin Cottrell.
Miami Trace’s Aiden Johnson won a decision over Ian Roush at 138 pounds.
Weston Melvin received a forfeit for the Panthers at 144 pounds.
At 157 pounds, Vincent Munro of Miami Trace won a decision over Mack Parsley.
At 165 pounds, Washington’s Trevor Crocker lost a decision.
At 170, Miami Trace’s Kylan Knapp received a forfeit.
At 190 pounds, Miami Trace’s Jayden LeBeau won by pin over Jaxon Osborn in the first period.
Washington won the middle school match over Miami Trace, 56-36.
“In order to be the man, you have to beat the man,” Washington head coach Louis Reid said. “That’s what Trace is. This is their sport, I’ve said it time and time again.
“This is one of their best all-around teams that I’ve seen,” Reid said. “They’ve had some great teams. I’m not saying this is their best team, but this is a pretty complete team for them. When they’ve had injuries, they’ve had guys who could step in right away and score. They’re built for dual meets. They’re built to score high in tournaments.
“We knew coming in it would take a mighty effort,” Reid said. “We had a couple of holes in our line-up tonight. We forfeited at 144 and 175. Normally we don’t forfeit those weights. That puts you down 12 points right away.
“Then we lost all of the swing matches,” Reid said. “We had some matches we thought we could win at 132, 138, 157, 165 and 150. If you change the outcome in those matches, it’s a whole different dual.
“Their kids came out and wrestled better to the end than we did,” Reid said. “That’s something we’ve got to work on. When we’re in close match situations, we’ve got to be able to score points. They did a better job of that in the swing matches and it really made a difference.
“Our overall effort was really good,” Reid said. “We just came up on the short side. I was glad to see our three seniors win. Mason won by major decision, Branton won by pin and Jenna had a forfeit. It’s pretty rare when you get all of your seniors in the line-up and then even more rare for them to all get wins, so, that was a good night for them.
“Moving forward, we’re 3-1 in the league,” Reid said. “We still have one league dual left with Jackson. We need to focus on winning that, because we still have a chance to win the league title if we can finish ahead of Trace at the league tournament (which is Feb. 12 at Jackson High School).
“We’ve got our bracket tournament here on Saturday,” Reid said. “There will be a total of 22 teams and over 200 wrestlers coming in. Fayette County is going to be the hot spot for wrestling this weekend. Miami Trace has 18 teams coming in to their tournament Saturday. It’ll be 40 of the best teams from across the state.
“Our middle school team continues to improve,” Reid said. “Coach (Craig) Snyder has been doing a good job down there and those kids are tough. Our kids have come a long way. Things are moving along for us.”
“Our seniors stepped up,” Miami Trace head coach Ben Fondale said. “There was a lot of energy early on in that dual and we kind of kept that momentum throughout. We got a couple of good wins and the kids felt the energy of their teammates; they really supported each other.
“I thought we looked solid,” Fondale said. “We did miss practice for four days in a row. We had one practice before this meet. Our guys were able to stay focused and do what they had to do.”
The Miami Trace/McDonald’s tournament is set for this Saturday beginning at 10 a.m.
