Published: December 16, 2007 12:32 am            

Jeff Classic brings holiday surprises

Plenty of local winners at wrestling event

JEFFERSONVILLE — If you look at the team standings from Saturday’s 30th annual Jeffersonville Classic, it would appear that everything went according to plan.

As expected, 19th-ranked Carmel and Southwestern took first and second place, respectively, while South Dearborn was third in the 14-team field. The host Red Devils clipped New Albany for fourth place.

But there was still plenty of room for surprises in the individual brackets.

From his position as a No. 7 seed, Jeff sophomore Caleb Browner took the title in the 160-pound weight class, pinning Carmel’s Nolan Pachciarz in the final and surprising everyone but himself.

“I was just talking to him the other day,” said Jeff coach Danny Struck. “And he said, ‘why am I so low? I should be a bit higher.’ He’s really the motor of our team and he prides himself on wearing everyone down in practice.”

While Browner pulled off the day’s biggest surprise, his teammates were busy crashing finals and winning titles of their own, as the Devils made five tourney finals and won two championships.

Junior Tyler Tatgenhorst claimed Jeff’s second victory, beating state-ranked Alan Peterson of South Dearborn. The Devils’ John Clark also made the heavyweight finals, while teammate Dominique Smith entered the third period tied with Muncie Southside’s Bryant Whitaker in the final 135 bout before falling, 5-2. Curtis Smith was second at 112 for Jeff.

“We only have three seniors in the lineup, so I’m pretty pleased,” said Struck, who saw his team even its record with New Albany at 1-1. “All the kids that won or went to the finals, this was their first time (in the tournament).”

The Bulldogs advanced three wrestlers to finals and got three resounding victories.

Nick Oxley picked up the first trophy for his team — and his second Jeff Classic crown — by pinning Charlestown’s Jeff Stotridge in the first period of their 125 match. Three classes later, Ivan Rodriguez continued to look like a solid state tournament contender, capping off his run through the bracket with a tough overtime win over Carmel’s Bob Corpus. The win improved Rodriguez to 21-0.

“Ivan had a good match,” said New Albany coach Eric Burres, who also got to present Rodriguez with his trophy, as the tournament honored its past winners. “He stayed active and kept at it. It paid off for him.”

J.T. Jenkins led the whole way in capturing the 171 title for the Bulldogs, padding a 4-3 lead with a late takedown to beat Carmel’s Andrew Molin. Overall, New Albany also had three third-place finishers in a day that went about like Burres expected.

“We did pretty well,” Burres said. “You always have a couple of matches that you wish you had won. We’re just going to go back to the drawing board and work out some of the kinks. We’re almost halfway through the season, and that’s when we want to really turn it on. In about a week, we’ll really start to get after it.”

It was tougher going for Charlestown, which entered the Classic after going unbeaten at the Mid-Southern Conference Duals and also holding a victory over New Albany.

But the injury-plagued Pirates ended up in eight place overall, claiming a second-, a third- and a fifth-place finish. Charlestown was without the services of two grapplers seeded third in their weight classes.

“We were sky-high for duals, but for whatever reason we were flat today,” said Charlestown coach Tom Kendrick. “We didn’t have a good week of practice.”

Sophomore Mark Daughterty was third at 152, while Craig Brown finished fifth at 189. Kevin Gonzalez (sixth at 112) drew some of the biggest applause of the day when he was given an award for the highest grade-point average in his weight class. Still, the Pirates improved from last season’s visit to the Classic, where they did not place a finisher higher than fifth.

“Each individual weight class has good competition,” Kendrick said. “At the top, this tournament is as good as ever.”

The Pirates will try to regroup for the South Putnam Invitational on Friday, Dec. 28.

“We’ve really pushed this group hard,” Kendrick said. “We’ll get in shape, get healthier and we’ll be fine.”

New Washington finished 14th on the day with 22 points, getting a third-place finish in the 145 bracket from Josh Sampson.

A winter storm early Saturday didn’t keep any of the teams from attending the event, which got off to a later-than-usual start and stretched into evening. Other than the fact that the field was minus two teams, it was another Jeff Classic full of the predictable and the unforeseen.

And those other two spots should be filled next year, when the Classic turns 31.

“We’re planning on adding two teams,” Struck said. “We’re looking at Bloomington South and Franklin Central next year, so it’s only going to get tougher. We’re not adding to the bottom. We’re adding teams that can win it.”



JEFF CLASSIC

Team scores — Carmel 245 1/2, Southwestern 189.5 1/2, South Dearborn 186 1/2, Jeffersonville 180 1/2, New Albany 174 1/2, Muncie Southside 150 1/2, Madison 130, Charlestown 122, Jennings County 97 1/2, Scottsburg 80, Salem 41, Paoli 39 1/2, Batesville 35, New Washington 22.

Individual winners — 103: 1. J. Armantrout (MU), 2. Taylor (MA), 3. Scroeder (SW), 4. Ballard (SD); 112: 1. Ackermann (CA), 2. Smith (JE), 3. McCord (SD), 4. Gibson (MA); 119: 1. Bartlett (SW), 2. Clark (SD), 3. Martin (NA), 4. Douthit (MU); 125: 1. Oxley (NA), 2. Stotridge (CH), 3. T. Armantrout (MU), 4. Coleman (CA); 130: 1. Harmon (SW), 2. Mascero (CA), 3. Martin (NA), 4. Roberts (MA); 135: 1. Whitaker (MU), 2. Smith (JE), 3. Frascella (CA), 4. Armand (JC); 140: 1. Mascero (CA), 2. Witte (SD), 3. Forbis (NA), 4. O’Neil (SW); 145: 1. Rodriguez (NA), 2. Corpus (CA), 3. Sampson (NW), 4. Schroeder (SW); 152: 1. Reed (CA), 2. Rodgers (SC), 3. Daugherty (CH), 4. Young (MA); 160: 1. Browner (JE), 2. Pachciarz (CA), 3. Chasteen (SC), 4. Bruther (SW); 171: 1. Jenkins (NA), 2. Molin (CA), 3. Biggs (JC), 4. Henderson (SC); 189: 1. Tatgenhorst (JE), 2. Peterson (SD), 3. Sailor (SW), 4. Benales (PA); 215: 1. E. King (MU), 2. J. Smith (SW), 3. Hayes (JE), 4. Forman (JE); 285: 1. Johnson (MA), 2. Smith (JE), 3. Spurgeon (SA), 4. Pierce (CA).

        

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