Miami Trace sophomore Lyric Dickerson has control of Bexley sophomore Marius Garcia in a 106-pound match on the first day of the 86th annual State wrestling tournament at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of The Ohio State University. Dickerson won this match, 8-2. Dickerson wrestles his second match in the quarterfinals Saturday at 10 a.m.
Chris Hoppes | Record-Herald
COLUMBUS — The 86th annual OHSAA Boys State Wrestling Tournament began on Friday, March 10 at the Jerome Schottenstein Center.
Three local male athletes competed in the first session on Friday, including Lyric Dickerson and Asher LeBeau of Miami Trace and Mack Parsley of Washington.
Dickerson was the first to wrestle, winning an 8-2 decision over Marcus Garcia of Bexley. Dickerson, a sophomore, went 0-2 at the state tournament a year ago, so this marked his first career win at this event. He spoke about his feelings after the victory.
“It feels really good. I’ve been working really hard this season for this. My mindset during the match was just to stay calm and get to where I know how to maneuver, and just wrestle hard.”
Miami Trace head coach Ben Fondale spoke about Dickerson’s match.
“We knew that we had to be the first one to shoot in that match. Garcia actually took us down when we were being a little bit hesitant from the neutral position. We took two shots that match and finished both of them, so we’ve just got to be a little more confident in our shots moving forward.”
Dickerson advances to wrestle against freshman Aiden Ohl of Ontario on Saturday in the quarterfinals.
The next to wrestle was sophomore Mack Parsley of Washington. He defeated senior Gage Davis from Wilmington by a score of 3-1. Davis pinned Parsley earlier in the season at the Hammer and Anvil tournament. Parsley shared his feelings following the win.
“It feels great to get my hand raised out there. He was obviously a tough kid, so I had to wrestle smart to get the win.”
Washington head coach Louis Reid talked about Parsley.
“One of the things we talked about was just managing matches, and that’s one thing Mack has done well since our home tournament. Since that tournament, Mack has been locked in and laser focused. He won the Frontier Athletic Conference, he won the Sectional, and then was in the District finals. That’s like a three or four-week stretch where he hadn’t lost any matches, up until the District championship match. We love how things are going right now. He’s wrestling with great confidence and he’s wrestling extremely smart right now. We couldn’t be prouder of him.”
Parsley will wrestle on Saturday in the quarterfinals against sophomore Andrew Barford from Columbus DeSales.
Asher LeBeau from Miami Trace was the next one on the mat. LeBeau lost a 15-0 decision to Tristan Craddock from Cloverleaf. He returned to action in the first round of consolation matches Friday night. Fondale shared some comments following the loss.
“Our opponent was getting a lot of good control from the top position. We had trouble getting our hips underneath us and moving from the bottom position. We had some trouble setting up our shots a little bit and our opponent was able to see the shots coming and capitalized on a few mistakes that we made.”
LeBeau would fall to senior Ripley Szanati from Buckeye Valley in the first round of the consolation bracket by a 7-4 decision, ending his season.
The Record-Herald will have updates on our website throughout the weekend with coverage from the state tournament.
