AVON LAKE – The Ashland wrestling team is getting used to titles.
One week after claiming their sixth Ohio Cardinal Conference crown since 2016, the Arrows rolled to a Division I sectional championship Saturday behind 178.5 team points. The closest competitor was host Avon Lake at 160.5.
In total, Ashland advanced wrestlers to next week’s Perrysburg district tournament in 10 of the 14 weight classes and had four grapplers make it to their respective championship bouts.
It was another banner day for first-year head coach Tommy Bauer and assistants Wade Miller, Brandon O’Neill, Josh Hunter and Jesse Palser.
“I knew we had a good opportunity to bring a handful of guys to the district tournament,” Bauer said. “We talked all week – it’s just one point, one period, one match at a time and what you do is you control the controllables and give yourself the best opportunity to win the match.
“Guys did that individually and it all came together at the end.”
Freshmen Mason Bauer (106 pounds) and Guardian Miller (126) continued to assert their dominance despite their youth, both going 3-0 on the day to take home sectional crowns after claiming OCC championships.
Bauer powered his way to three first-period pins and improved to 41-1 for the season, while Miller (40-5) collected a pin, a technical fall and closed with a 13-4 major decision in his title bout.
The duo accounted for two of the six AHS underclassmen who survived Week 1 of the postseason.
Coach Bauer said they are the first two Ashland freshmen to eclipse 40 wins in a season, and Mason Bauer (ranked No. 6 at his weight) will be facing a gauntlet at districts next week that includes three wrestlers ranked ahead of him.
“I think (Mason) still has a couple more weeks yet to peak; his best is yet to come,” coach Bauer said. “If Mason brings that kind of intensity next weekend it’s going to fun to watch.”
Also advancing to their championship matches were senior Cayden Spotts (215) and junior Cooper Smith (190), who both posted 2-1 records on the day.
Spotts (38-9), a two-time state qualifier who also was a sectional runner-up last year, turned in a pair of pins. His loss came by a 7-3 count.
Smith (31-11), who was the other Arrow to win an OCC crown a week ago, picked up a pin in 13 seconds to open his day before surviving a 4-3 decision to make the championship bout. He was pinned in that final match.
Coach Bauer credited senior captains Spotts, Tyler Dodson (18-21, fourth place at 144) and Noah Fent (20-20, did not place at 150) for their leadership. Dodson lost his opener but won two in a row to survive the weekend while Bauer said Fent ran into one of the toughest weight classes of the tournament.
Both coming in third place for Ashland with matching 3-1 records – including two pins apiece – were freshman Isaak Wickham (25-12 at 132) and junior Hayden DiPuccio (17-21 at 175). Wickham avenged a loss from earlier in the season with a pin in his third-place final.
Joining Dodson with fourth-place, district-qualifying efforts were freshman Max Ohl (27-13 at 113), sophomore Talon Boyd (17-16 at 165) and junior Dylan Wodzisz (16-21 at heavyweight).
Ohl was able to knock off a returning state alternate to qualify out and Boyd topped an opponent who had beaten him earlier this season.
Ashland’s lone alternate came out of the 120-pound class in sophomore Blake McCarty (14-22), who went 3-2 on the day.
All of it continued to build on a big finish to the season and a big future for coach Bauer and the Arrows.
Last week, Bauer became just the second AHS coach ever to win a league title in his first year leading the program. The only other had been his own coach at Ashland, Gary Weisenstein, who did it in 1997.
“It says a lot about us and our depth going forward,” Bauer said. “These younger guys have been training with us for a long time, so we knew what we were bringing in as far as a coaching staff and what we were adding to the value there.”
“For a team that brought only three returning district qualifiers to this tournament this year,” he said, “we’ve really set the tone for the next couple years, for certain.”