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Wheeling Park mat coach Sean Doyle’s squad was fighting tooth and nail on the mat Saturday evening as the Patriots’ wrestling team prevailed over Beaver Local to win the overall team championship at the Ron Mauck OVAC Wrestling Tournament.

The victory for Doyle, a legendary prep and college wrestler in his day, was the first he ever saw on the floor at WesBanco Arena as he was runner-up twice during his prep days at Buckeye Local.

“It absolutely is a great feeling of accomplishment, but that never even came across my mind until my friend that came in from Columbus today and said ‘Doyle you finally got an OVAC title,’” the first-year Park mat coach said.

The Patriots started the day in the lead, but quickly saw it dwindle away as the Patriots were only able to put one wrestler — Dirk Bauer (103) — in the finals, but managed to earn some big points as they wrestled back through the consolation rounds.

“I was coaching a consolation match and heard the team scores as Beaver Local pulled ahead and just lowered my head,” Doyle admitted. “That is when I knew we needed to continue to push ourselves to win matches.”

The thought came true for Doyle as he had three wrestlers — Jason Waugh (125), Allen Earnest (215) and Dutch Fisher (285) — spring board off of Bauer’s finals victory to position themselves into third place finishes.

“I have been saying all year this is very tight knit group,” Doyle said earlier in the tournament. “They feed off of one another.”

The total team effort was extended one step farther for the Patriots in the finals as Doyle’s junior varsity team and other backups made a loud appearance.

“It an awesome feeling being able to wrestle with this type of background. It was a big motivator for those guys,” Doyle explained about his non-OVAC bound wrestlers that stormed the WesBanco Arena bare chested and doused in red, white and blue paint.

“Every single person on this team scored. We had the ones which we wish would have scored more and we had over achievers too. Dutch Fisher took third and was ranked sixth. Seth Bumgardner was seeded sixth and took fourth in the tournament,” Doyle said.

The team win was one that may not have been expected after losing to West Virginia power house Oak Glen only two weeks prior in a dual meet.

“When we lost that dual I was commenting, ‘I hope in two weeks from now you could say this was a good kick in the butt for us’ and it ended up being that for us,” Doyle said about the Golden Bears who finished third in the team standings.

Arguably the best finals match of the evening came in the 140-pound weight class as Beallsville’s Jimmy Reisz and Bellaire’s Robbie Chilson collided. Reisz, a returning OVAC runnerup, and Chilson, an Ohio Division III runner-up, have met twice this in the past month with Resiz winning both bouts and history repeated itself on the mat in the finals.

“Jimmy is a very intelligent kid and is the hardest working kid in the room. When you get that kind of combination you’ll have a very successful kid,” Beallsville coach Clint Abbott said about his 140-pound Bierkortte Award winner.

Reisz hit a pair of take downs and escapes to tame the returning Ohio Division III state runner-up by a score of 6-4.

“The next step Jimmy is looking for is a state title,” Abbott said about the former state place winner. “I don’t know if we’re going to find anyone this year that is better on their feet than Jimmy.”

From the rest of the Ohio side of the conference, Cambridge finished the tourney with three individual champions — Paul Rose (125), Chad Teague (171) and Kirk Wetherell (189), the most in the tournament.

Claiming two individual titles were the Stine brothers from Edison. The Wildcats’ standouts both managed to defeat returning OVAC champions in their finals bouts as Nick Stine managed to pick up a win by injury default over Wheeling Central’s Zach Basich (145) and Andy decisioned Brooke’s James McFarland (135) 2-0.

Beaver Local also claimed two indvidual golds with Arizona Miller (112) and Derek Wolfe (285).

Other individual winners were Oak Glen’s Troy Eckleberry (119), Beallsville’s Jimmy Reisz (140), Shadyside’s Johnny Merryman, Bridgeport’s Bryan Skoff (160) and Steubenville’s Branko

Busick (215).

WHEELING — Oak Glen junior Troy Eckleberry did something Saturday night at Wesbanco Arena that wrestling coach Larry Shaw believes has only been done five other times at the school – win back-to-back titles at the Ron Mauck Ohio Valley Athletic Conference Wrestling Tournament.

“It’s awesome, only a few have done it,” said the junior, who won a year ago at 112 pounds. “It feels pretty good.”

No one, though, has done it three times for the Golden Bears.

The 119-pounder defeated Beaver Local’s Mitch Thompson, 5-2, and had the match in hand the whole way.

Eckleberry had defeated him in a dual meet recently and tried not to let that match enter into his preparation for the finale.

“I didn’t want to think about the fact I had already wrestled him,” said Eckleberry. “I wanted to treat it like a new match with a new opponent. It’s just like any other match – you wrestle the same way.”

“Troy’s a great kid,” said Shaw. “He’s a hard worker. He’s very aggressive on his feet. I’m proud of him.

“It’s obviously a challenge when you’ve beaten somebody to get back up again. But, in this situation, that’s what you have to do.”

The Golden Bears’ Cody Miller lost the 152-pound championship to Shadyside’s Johnny Merryman in overtime, 3-1.

“I’m proud of Cody, too, for getting to the finals,” said Shaw. “Being a four-time place winner is quite an accomplishment. Ethan Dray is also a four-time place winner.

“Our seniors wrestled real well through this tournament – Nick, Zack (Six), Ethan and Cody. They all performed well.

“As a team, I’m disappointed. We had three seeded wrestlers, two of them pretty high, who didn’t place and that hurt us in the team standings.

“We’re going to have to work on trying to fix that.”

Wheeling Park won the team title with 204 points, six ahead of Beaver Local. Cambridge, on the strength of three champions, finished third at 184 points and Oak Glen was fourth with 178.

Also winning OVAC titles were Steubenville’s Branko Busick at 215 pounds and Edison’s Andy and Nick Stine.

But, the Stine Brothers made to the top in completely different manners.

The 135-pound Andy Stine stopped Brooke’s James McFarland, 2-0, for his title.

The 145-pound Nick Stine won when Wheeling Central’s Zach Basich could not continue after injuring his left knee in the first period.

Basich tried to continue, but could not.

“Zach is a heck of a competitor,” said Nick Stine, who was seeded third in the event and made it to the finale after defeating No. 7-seed, Oak Glen’s Nick McAvoy, 7-4, in one semifinal. “He tried to stick it out, but just couldn’t. You have to respect him for that.

“I thought I had a pretty good tournament.”

“Basich is a great wrestler,” said Edison coach Bill Koehnlein. “We were looking forward to wrestling him. You feel bad for him, but, at the same time, I’m happy for Nick.

“He’s wrestled hard. It’s been a great tournament for him.”

It was the fourth time McFarland and Stine wrestled this year and the Edison senior is 4-0.

“He’s a tough kid,” McFarland said of Stine. “He beat me pretty bad the first time. After that it’s been a one-point match, one-point match. This was the last time so I had to go at him as hard as I could.

“I’m not ashamed to lose to him. He’s a good wrestler.

“I knew this would be a hard match coming in. I thought I did alright against him. I gave up that penalty point and kicked him. He was tough on his feet for the last minute-and-a-half of the match. I give him credit for it.”

Stine also knew this wouldn’t be a cake walk.

“It’s tough,” he said about wrestling McFarland for the fourth time in such a short period. “He’s a good wrestler. I knew this was going to be a tough match.”

The victory was a validation of sorts for Stine who chose not to play football this season for the Wildcats. He missed his junior year of wrestling after breaking his leg during football practice.

“I just kept telling myself ‘I’ve worked too hard not to get this,’ ” he said. “It was really hard to give up (football). I thought about it a long time and worked really hard (at wrestling) in the off-season. I think I made the right choice.

“My off-season wrestling helped me a ton.

“I’d like to thank Smitty for where I’m at. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for Smitty helping me out.”

“He (McFarland) just keeps getting tougher every time,” Koehnlein said. “It’s a great accomplishment for Andy. It’s something he’s worked hard for. It makes up for lost time last year.”

Busick avenged his only loss of the season to Caldwell’s Derick Hesson. The Big Red junior had a takedown in the third period to cement the 5-3 victory.

“This was a big goal for me,” said Busick, who finished sixth last year at 189 pounds. “I’ve been training really hard for this one.

“I like it (wrestling 215) a lot better. The kids are a lot bigger. It seems that I’m pretty much the quickest one out there. It fits me more. I like 215.”

“He was a good wrestler last year,” Big Red coach Mike Blackburn said of Busick. “I think the one thing last year was that confidence. He definitely has it this year.

“He wrestled tough today

OVAC WRESTLING TOURNAMENT: Beaver Local comes close, but can’t beat Park

By PAUL EDGAR, pedgar@reviewonline.com

WHEELING — Beaver Local and Oak Glen came into the final day of the 55th annual OVAC Wrestling Tournament with most believing they had little chance of catching Wheeling Park.

They were wrong.

Heading into the evening’s championship rounds, the Beavers had moved to within two points of the Patriots, with the Bears trailing the leaders by 13 points.

While both squads gave their best shot, Wheeling Park’s consistency on the final night at WesBanco Arena proved to be the deciding factor.

Wheeling Park finished with 204 points, Beaver Local took second with 198, Cambridge was third with 184 and Oak Glen fourth with 178.

“Our kids wrestled well and gave their best effort,” Beaver Local coach Mark Emmerling said. “It just wasn’t enough this time. Wheeling Park got 10 kids place and we had eight. A couple more placers and we would’ve been alright.”

Oak Glen coach Larry Shaw believed his team could have performed better, but was proud of the way they competed.

“As a team, we’re disappointed,” Shaw said. “I thought we had a chance to win here. Having three seeded wrestlers not placing certainly took its toll.”

Beaver Local’s Arizona Miller had the first of eight chances to claim an individual title for a local team when he squared off in the 112-pound title match with Martins Ferry No. 2 seed, Taylor Yoder.

Miller defeated Oak Glen’s David Mahan in a 12-1 major decision to reach the finals, where he finished second last year at 103 pounds.

Yoder came into the bout with a perfect 25-0 record, while No. 1 seed Miller came in at 19-2.

The match was tight throughout, with Yoder leading, 1-0, after two periods. Miller, a sophomore, responded late in the third period, however, to claim at 2-1 victory.

“I knew I needed a point to tie it up,” Miller said. “First place definitely feels a lot better than second.”

The 119-pound finals pitted tow locals, Oak Glen’s Troy Eckleberry and Beaver Local’s Mitch Thompson.

Eckleberry, a No. 1 seed, entered as the defending 112-pound champion and cruised through the first three rounds, winning two by pin and one by major decision. In the semifinals, Eckleberry downed East Liverpool No. 4 seed Preston Foster, 4-0.

Thompson, a No. 6 seed, flew in under the radar for the Beavers, upsetting Buckeye Local No. 2 seed Mike Kendjorski, 5-4 in overtime, to reach the finals.

In the championship match, Eckleberry controlled the action, leading 3-0 after two periods, and eventually winning a 5-2 decision.

“It was nice to get the first one, but seeing as so few have won two, the second one feels a little better,” Eckleberry said.

With two local champions already crowned, East Liverpool’s Cagney Springer looked to be the third as he took on Cambridge’s Paul Rose for the 125-pound title.

Springer, who entered the bout 27-0, won his semifinal matchup over Wheeling Park’s Jason Waugh, but it came at a cost.

The Potter grappler was cut on the back of his head and while Springer was able to win the match by fall, the injury required four stitches before the evening’s championship round.

In the finals, Rose dominated Springer, building an 8-2 lead after two periods and eventually winning the bout by a 12-2 major decision.

“(Springer) will build on this,” East Liverpool coach Todd Smith said. “It’s hard to lose your first in front of all these people, but he’ll use it as motivation. I’m sure we’ll see Rose again at districts.”

Easily the night’s most dramatic match was the 152-pound title bout between Oak Glen’s Cody Miller and Shadyside’s Johnny Merryman.

Merryman, a No. 2 seed, entered with a 28-1 record, his only loss coming at the hands of Miller in the St. Clairsville Tournament finals.

Miller, a No. 1 seed, was perfect coming into the match at 25-0.

After finishing third at last year’s tournament, Miller was looking to join the ranks of Oak Glen’s OVAC champions, which included his father, Fred, who won a title in 1968.

The match was hotly contested throughout, with Miller and Merryman tied, 0-0, after one period.

Miller took a 1-0 lead after two periods, but Merryman evened the score, forcing overtime.

In the end, Merryman prevailed, 2-1, in three extra periods.

“I would liked to have won,” Miller said. “Mostly for my father, but I guess that’s the ebb and flow of things. You win some and you lose some.”

In a battle of undefeated wrestlers, Beaver Local’s Jon Bittenger (20-0) faced off against Bridgeport’s Bryan Skoff (29-0) in the 160-pound title match.

The Beavers hopes of a team title were riding on a Bittenger victory.

Bittenger, who finished third last year, took an early 2-1 lead after one period.

The bout remained close, 3-3, after two periods, but Skoff dominated the last frame, winning the match, 8-4.

In the final matches of the evening between heavyweights, Beaver Local No. 1 seed Derek Wolfe squared off against Martins Ferry No. 5 seed Steve Woodford.

After a close first period, Wolfe took over and finished off the night with a pin victory.

“That’s the best I’ve felt all weekend,” Wolfe said. “It’s great to get a pin in the OVAC finals.”

Shaw believes the tournament can be a building block as the Bears continue their quest for a 12th straight state title.

“We’ve got to move on,” he said. “We’ll get together Monday and try to solve some problem areas and become more consistent as a team.”

The Wheeling Park mat program will look to regain the title it won two years ago at the Ron Mauck OVAC Wrestling Tournament as the Patriots had 12-of-14 wrestlers, the most in this year’s field.

“It is going to be a fun weekend regardless of the outcome facing the top teams,” Wheeling Park mat mentor Sean Doyle assured.

Battling for the top prize, Park, Beaver Local and Oak Glen will be walking through familiar territory as the three have combined for the past six overall titles.

“To make a run at this tournament you have to have a lot of kids place,” Beaver Local coach Mark Emmerling said as his squad boasts three top seeds – Arizona Miller (112), Jon Bittinger (160) and Derek Wolfe (285) – which is the most in this year’s tourney.

Offering the most seeded wrestlers from the Ohio side of the river include Bellaire, Caldwell, Cambridge and Harrison Central.

The Big Reds enter the tournament with six seeds – two of them being No. 2 seeds with Robbie Chilson (140) and Aaron Porter (145).

“I have six seeded and I think I have a couple more that I think can surprise a couple people and place,” Big Reds’ mat mentor Shane Shaffer said. “If we can continue our momentum from the Buckeye 8 Tournament and have our kids wrestle like they did we can be very successful,”

Chilson, a returning OVAC champion and Ohio Division III runner-up, has taken a back seat in the seeding to another wrestling standout – Beallsville’s Jimmy Reisz.

The two have toed the line twice this season season with Reisz coming out on top in both meetings.

“Robbie stepped it up a notch at the Buckeye 8 Tournament against Buckeye Local’s Mike Slaga and looked tough. He reminded me of Robbie from last year,” Shaffer offered

Porter will have to potentially battle another Goliath with Wheeling Central’s Zach Basich claiming the No. 1 spot in his bracket. Basich is a returning OVAC and West Virginia Class A/AA state champion.

“You can figure out what you want in that seeding meeting, but it all determines on how the kids come out and wrestle,” Shaffer said.

Harrison Central will have six seeds as well with Ian Howell as the Huskies’ highest seed at No. 2 at 171-pounds. His top competition, if he makes it to the finals, will come from Buckeye Local’s Nathan Schaal.

“His determining factor is he needs to get his mind right and have it focused for a complete six minutes,” Buckeye Local coach Nate Skrzypek noted about Schall’s probability to set foot on the final’s mat Saturday evening against Howell. “If he focuses he is tough to beat.”

Other local top seeds on the Ohio side of the river are Cambridge’s Paul Rose (125), St. Clairsville’s Dominic Prezzia (130), Edison’s Andy Stine (135), Steubenville’s Mark Markakis (189) and Caldwell’s Derrick Hesson (215).

On the West Virginia side, the Oak Glen Golden Bears enter the tournament with second highest number of seeds with 10 – two of those being top seeds Troy Eckleberry (119) and Cody Miller (152).

“The kids have to wrestle and they have to wrestle well. That is what it all comes down to,” Shaw noted. “Seeds haven’t won too many matches the kids just need to go out and wrestle. That is all it boils down to and they have to get stronger as the tournament progresses.”

With depth never being a problem, Shaw says he looks forward to having his team live up to its previous accolades.

“It doesn’t change. You need to do the same things to win a tournament of this capacity,” Shaw explained. “ I tell my kids their first challenge is they have earned that seeded position and they have to wrestle up to that seed. After that, if you can accomplish that then you can go on from there.”

Oak Glen’s Eckleberry is no stranger to being in the spotlight, the returning OVAC champion and West Virginia Class A/AA runner-up doesn’t have any problems preparing for the three-day grind.

“The competitiveness has to come from within. It is up to the individual and our kids strive to be the best,” Shaw said. “I am really proud of Troy (Eckleberry) he is a great worker. He come in every day and stays pretty consistent.”

Opening ceremonies will get under way on Thursday beginning at 6 p.m. with wrestling following at 6:30 p.m.

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