SWANTON — Paced by seven individual champions, the Wauseon Indians repeated as champions of the Northwest Ohio Athletic Conference in dominating fashion Saturday.
Wauseon qualified 11 of its 14 wrestlers into the championship matches at the NWOAL tournament at Swanton. Six Wauseon wrestlers repeated as champions.
OBJECTSenior Sandro Ramirez became just the third wrestler in school history to win four NWOAL titles. Ramirez won the 152-pound weight class with a 16-6 major decision against Swanton’s Chase Moore.
PHOTO GALLERY: NWOAL wrestling tournament
Seniors Hunter Yackee (132) and Mauricio Barajas (138) became three-time league champs for the Indians. Senior Alex Slattman (120), and juniors Gavin Ritter (113) and Xavier Torres (160) earned repeat titles. Junior Trent Davis also won for the Indians with a pin at 182.
Wauseon finished with 280.5 points. Archbold edged Delta for second place, 171.5-167 in the tournament. However, the Blue Streaks and Panthers tied for second place based on the league's format of combining dual meet results with the tournament. Delta went 6-2 in dual meets, while Archbold was 5-3. The schools tied with 13 points. Wauseon went 8-0 and posted 17 points.
Delta had three wrestlers win individual titles. Junior Cole Mattin earned his third consecutive title, this one at 126. Senior Dylan Rogers (195) captured his second NWOAL title. Freshman Zack Mattin, Cole's younger brother, won by fall at 106.
Archbold's lone champion was senior Gavin Grime, who edged Wauseon's Gage Grunden 3-2 at 145.
Patrick Henry sophomore T.J. Rhamy decisioned Delta's J.D. Osborn at 170.
At 220, Liberty Center junior Caleb Carpenter defeated Delta's Dalton Richard 4-3 in a match that went to the ultimate tiebreaker.
Swanton senior Tommy Lytle emerged with the title at 285 with a 3-1 victory against Wauseon's Alex Sosa that also went to the ultimate tiebreaker.
Ramirez said it's an honor to join the 12 other wrestlers to win four titles in the NWOAL, one of the oldest leagues in the state.
“Those guys are classified as the greatest to ever wrestle in the NWOAL and I'm glad to be classified with them now,” Ramirez said. “It feels great. The whole team is doing good things in the room and we're achieving our goals. We battle each other every day. This is a stepping stone going into the rest of the postseason. We mean business.”
Wauseon has now won three of the past four NWOAL titles. The Indians also won the Division II state team dual wrestling championship Feb. 11 in Columbus.
Wauseon began its run of six NWOAL titles in the past nine years in 2010, also at Swanton.
“It's full circle for us,” Wauseon coach Mike Ritter said. “When we won our first league title it was here almost 10 years ago. So that's kind of nice for our seniors to close out their careers as league champs where it started.”
Ramirez joined Wade Hodges (2012-15) and Tony Banister (2014-17) as Wauseon's only four-time champions. Only three other wrestlers in school history had won three titles.
“To add those guys to that list is phenomenal. That's something they should be very proud off,” Ritter said.
Yackee shut out Archbold’s Zach Rocha 7-0 to earn his three-peat.
“It feels really good,” Yackee said. “It's always a goal to win the league, but it makes it feel better to see the team succeed. I have the best wrestling partners in the state. Every day I get my best matches in practice. Winning today gets our confidence rolling.”
Cole Mattin continued a family tradition at Delta, when he beat Wauseon’s Nolan Ray 11-9. Cole's brother Drew Mattin, who is now wrestling at the University of Michigan, won three NWOAL titles. Their father, Mike, won two NWOAL titles in 1989 and 1990.
“It's awesome. One of my goals is to definitely win a fourth one next year,” he said. “But this doesn't end the season for me. I want to be on the top of the podium at state. I feel like I'm peaking.”
Younger brother Zack pinned Liberty Center's Cameron Hennman just 57 seconds in.
Gavin Ritter then got Wauseon rolling with a 23-7 technical fall over LC's Dylan Matthews. Slattman then won by default over Swanton's Zack Schalle. Barajas then defeated Delta's Dawson Swicegood 9-3.
Torres got the Indians’ sixth win, when he beat Swanton’s Ryan Marvin 9-5. Davis got the final victory for Wauseon as he pinned Archbold’s Mason Babcock in 3:48.
Rogers posted a 9-1 major decision against Wauseon's Aaron Harris.
The Indians also had third-place finishes from Damon Molina (106) and Samuel Sosa (220).
Ritter said the consistency of the program comes down to several factors.
“The kids buy in,” he said. “We have a good youth program through high school and we build at each level. That's paid dividends for us with this team. They've gone through that cycle.”
It was the program’s 13th title overall.
“Our goal is to have our best matches in our own wrestling room,” Ritter said. “We're very competitive in our practice room and it shows when we wrestle other schools. I'm really happy with our performance today. We put 11 guys in the finals. We've been wrestling a pretty tough schedule the last month and a half. The guys are peaking at the right time.”
Contact Mark Monroe at: mmonroe@theblade.com, 419-724-6354, or on Twitter @MonroeBlade.
First Published February 17, 2018, 11:23 p.m.
