LEXINGTON – Lexington junior Bailey Faust started and ended the night by beating the best wrestlers Loudonville and Galion had to offer Wednesday night.
In between, his teammates also took care of business as the Minutemen demolished two of the better wrestling teams in the area – 51-9 over Loudonville and 58-9 against Galion.
Lexington coach Brent Rastetter, who has built the best program in the area with five straight Top 10 team performances at the state meet, is not easily impressed by pre-Christmas performances. But even the veteran coach was smiling after the easy team wins, which saw nine of his grapplers post double wins.
“I told the kids afterward that if we wrestle this well and continue to work and improve, we could be scary good at the end of the season,” Rastetter said. “We were spot-on tonight.”
The strong performance was made more remarkable by the fact Lexington competed in the Fricker’s Duals in Defiance last Friday and Saturday, posting a 7-3 dual meet record against great competition from northwest Ohio and Michigan.
“We wrestled 12 matches in six days,” said Rastetter, in his 11th year coaching at Lexington and 23rd overall. “I am still not recovered. But the kids looked ready to go tonight.”
Faust was definitely ready. A state qualifier as a sophomore, Faust moved back up to 220 pounds Wednesday to take on Loudonville’s Ryan Weber (4th in the state last year) and Galion’s Deaken McCoy, a state qualifier last year, who came down from 285.
With their dual match starting at 220, Faust earned a 4-1 win against Weber, using two first-period takedowns to topple the powerful Redbird. He ended the evening by pinning a stunned McCoy seconds into the second period, executing a perfect banana split.
“I heard Deaken wanted to come down (from 285) so I wanted to come up and wrestle him,” Faust said. “It was good to get to wrestle Ryan, too. You always want to get pins, but I will take a 4-1 win against Ryan. He is a tough opponent and a great wrestler.”
Faust, the team’s normal 195-pounder, ran his record to 17-0 this season and 99-13 overall, just one shy of his 100th win.
“Bailey wanted to wrestle their best kids … he leads by example on the mats … he is a dominant force,” Rastetter said. “None of our kids are shying away from the toughest kids. They want the competition.”
Faust used speed to his advantage in both wins, especially against the much larger McCoy, some of which may be attributed to his work on the soccer pitch for Lexington in the fall.
“(Playing soccer) got me away from wrestling for a little while,” Faust said. “It kept me in shape a little bit. When wrestling started, I was not that far away from where I needed to be in conditioning.”
Also posting double wins for Lexington Wednesday were junior Nate Temple (13-3 at 285 pounds), senior Jonah Schropp (12-5 at 120), junior Brandon Leynaud (14-3 at 132), junior Jon Watkins (16-1 at 138), junior Chuck Mikelait (14-3 at 145), senior Jordan Dalton (11-6 at 160), senior Gabe Benjamin (13-3 at 170), junior Drew Kasper (14-2 at 182) and senior Kendall Kuhn (14-2 at 195).
Rastetter’s teams have posted a 159-23 dual meet record during his tenure at Lexington. He sees a bright future this season.
“We are still not at full strength,” he said. “We have some kids who are still getting down to the weights they will wrestle at … once we get there, this team could become very special.”
Lexington wrestles again next Wednesday, hosting Tiffin Columbian and Plymouth in another pair of dual meets.
