Ryan Shanower was the only Cardinal wrestler to earn a spot on the podium at the Jackson-Milton tournament on Saturday, but the Huskies had several others in contention.
“We did show a lot of improvement even though we didn’t get into the placing rounds,” said Cardinal coach Jeff Zeigler. “We showed a lot of improvement across the board, we just weren’t at that level of competition yet. That was a district caliber tournament. There was some exciting competition down there with Rootstown, Pymatuning Valley, Girard. They’re all very solid teams and Jackson-Milton and Salem are solid. It was a very tough tournament with many returning state qualifiers and placers and even a state champ.”
Shanower finished fourth at 120 pounds with a 4-1 record.
He lost to Pymatuning Valley’s William Campbell in the preliminary rounds then wrestled his way back to the third place match. Due to a state rule limiting a wrestler to just five matches in a single day, Shanower was forced to default that match.
“He had a good day,” Zeigler said. “He lost a tough match to Campbell but he was in the match in the first and second period. He wrestled him tough.”
Jerry Rose (145), Zane Drebus (152) and Tim Baril (285) all reached the semifinals in their respective weight classes but came up one win short of placement.
“They wrestled really well to get to the semis,” Zeigler said. “I was impressed all day and had high hopes going into the semis, we just ran into some buzz saws. As the pressure mounted, it showed a little bit. They didn’t step it up like they needed to in order to get to that next win but they wrestled really well to get to the semis.”
Rose pinned a wrestler from Rootstown who ended up finishing in third place.
Anthony Stango (138) and Paul Byler (132) also had solid performances for the Huskies.
“Anthony Stango lost his first match and was wrestling back through the consolation round. He was winning 10-0 and had the kid in a cradle but got rolled over and pinned,” Zeigler said. “Byler had a nice day too. He was one match from getting in there.”
The Huskies host Kirtland on Friday in a head-to-head dual.
