For the Daily Journal
<strong>E</strong>ntering Saturday’s annual Johnson County wrestling tournament, Center Grove wrestling coach Cale Hoover wasn’t optimistic about his team defending the championship.
Hoover figured the Trojans would go either 3-1 or 2-2 in the meet.
Center Grove exceeded Hoover’s expectations, going 4-0 and crowning two individual champions and winning their third consecutive Johnson County tournament.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“To be quite honest, I’m in shock,” said an elated Hoover after the tournament. “I thought maybe we’d get second or third. This hasn’t been our best season, but we made some moves in the tournament that paid off and we got some huge matches that ended in our favor.”
But all the drama of the championship came down to one match against host Indian Creek in the Trojans’ third meet that ultimately decided the team title.
In the final match at 152 pounds, senior Logan Coyle came back from a 4-0 deficit to beat former county champion Tony Mosconi, 7-6, and give the Trojans an exciting 30-29 win against the previously unbeaten Braves.
Coyle, who won the 145-pound title last year, was joined by teammate Gleason Mappes as a champion. Mappes won at 160.
Runner-up Indian Creek (14-1) may have lost the team war, but they won plenty of battles, crowning a school-record six individual winners — freshman Owen Sego (113), sophomores Gabe Pitzulo (120) and Alex Mosconi (126), juniors Brad Trietsch (138) and Grant Goforth (220) and senior Joe Clevenger (182).
It was the second straight championship for both Mosconi and Goforth.
Franklin, who finished third, had five champions with sophomore Ethan Nash (132), and seniors Trevor Reese (145), Burk Van Horn (170), Jake Moore (195) and Jacob Lamping (285). It was the second title for both Van Horn and Moore — and the fourth for Reese.
Greenwood had one champion, 106-pound junior Keeghan Overton, who was also named the Tim Robison Award winner as the tourney’s outstanding wrestler.
Overton may have won as the best wrestler, but it was Coyle who was the calmest, especially after falling behind early.
“I wasn’t going to panic,” Coyle said. “(Mosconi) is a good wrestler. I wasn’t at my best in the first period and he caught me. I knew I could come back, but I had to wrestle better.”
Coyle did that, with an escape and takedown in the second to trim the lead to 4-3. In the third, Coyle cut Mosconi loose to drop another point behind, but the strategy to get a takedown worked as Coyle took the junior down for a 5-5 tie.
Mosconi took the lead again with 1:17 remaining in the match, but Coyle got another takedown, his third of the match, with 19 seconds left and held off a Mosconi reversal attempt at the buzzer to secure the decisive victory.
Despite having the most champions, there was some disappointment from Indian Creek coach Pat Dowty. Dowty had high expectations entering the tournament as this was the host Braves’ best chance to grab the team title.
Indian Creek’s best previous finish in the tournament had been fourth.
“We wanted to win this,” Dowty said. “We felt that if we wrestled at our best, we would win this tournament, but we didn’t wrestle to our potential. We were close and this will make the guys hungry to win some more.”
Another positive was the Braves beating longtime power Franklin, the first time they have ever beaten the Grizzly Cubs at the tournament.
The match ended 36-all, but the Braves were awarded the match due to the tiebreaker — the greater number of near falls. Indian Creek had 15 to Franklin’s 12.
