NORTH OLMSTED — Olmsted Falls and Midview came into Thursday’s Southwestern Conference double dual riding a wave of momentum.
The Bulldogs took second at the prestigious Medina Invitational Tournament last week, while Midview won tiles at the Vermilion Holiday and Brush dual tournaments. Both teams entered the matchup unbeaten.
The Middies (17-1, 2-1 SWC) were up for the challenge, but the challenge from Olmsted Falls proved to be a little too stiff to overcome. The Bulldogs improved to 3-0 in the SWC (8-0 overall) with a 53-12 win over Midview in the final dual of the night and a 63-15 win over host North Olmsted.
The Middies began the night with a 49-22 win over Westlake. The Demons (1-2) rebounded to defeat the shorthanded Eagles (1-2), 40-33, thanks to five forfeits in the final six weight classes.
“That was a rough one,” Midview coach Shawn Bristow said. “We knew Falls was going to be really, really tough. They’ve got quite a few seniors who are state-ranked. But there’s no excuses from us. If we want to wrestle with the best, we’ve got to start hanging with the best.
“We only won three out 13 bouts and we forfeited 113. That’s not enough. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It was a good gauge because we’ve been having a lot of success lately, but some of that success is because the competition hasn’t been as tough — definitely not as tough as Olmsted Falls.”
Olmsted Falls opened with three straight wins — a 16-3 technical fall by 106-pounder Michael Shaw, a forfeit win by Nic Kuntz at 113 and a 17-2 technical fall by sophomore 120-pounder Jihad Salti — to grab a 15-0 lead.
A pin by Midview freshman Pablo Cruz at 132 cut the deficit to 15-9, but the Middies didn’t win another match until Alec Forrer earned a 7-3 decision over Jaden Mendeluk at 170.
In the meantime, the Bulldogs earned four pinfalls and a technical fall in their eight remaining victories. Picking up pins were Noah Broski (152), Brice Locklear (160), Noel Caraballo (220) and Patrick Simon (285).
“We look forward to wrestling conference matches,” Bulldogs coach Bryce Burkhard said. “We have some tough matches coming up, so it’s important to build some momentum going forward in our conference.
“We don’t really know how the dual meet portion factors into the overall title picture, but we still make it our goal to go undefeated in the SWC. We want to earn that momentum and that seeding heading into our conference tournament. There’s a lot of wrestling still to go.”
Salti and Broski each earned two pinfalls Thursday night, while 145-pounder Alec Kirby had a pin and a technical fall for the Bulldogs. Josh Jaeckin (138) and Tony Caraffi (182) each had pinfalls in the win over North Olmsted.
“We’ve been working hard in practice and waiting for this,” said Salti, who bumped up from 113 to help fill a hole in the Bulldogs’ lineup Thursday. “I didn’t like how I did at Medina personally, so I came in here with a purpose. I wanted to do better and wrestle my way. Tonight, I was able to do that and helped our team pick up some big wins.”
Burkhard singled out Salti for his performance.
“He’s normally our 13 pounder and he bumps up a class just for conference matches to help our team become stronger,” he said. “We had an injury at 120, so him bumping up and getting two pins for us in that spot was tremendous. He did a nice job.
“Noah Broski did a heck of a job for us at 52. We had a bunch of guys who wrestled well today and have wrestled well this year.”
Cruz also had his first of two pinfalls Thursday — a 43-second pin of Eyad Shouman — to lead the Middies in the opener. But the performance against Olmsted Falls erased that positive momentum.
“If we want to get guys down to state — which is our ultimate goal — we’ve got to be able to hang with teams like Olmsted Falls,” Bristow said.
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