ORLANDO, Fla. – If Lexington posts another winning wrestling season next winter, the roots of it can be traced to the heat of a summer national event in sunny Florida.
This week, Lexington coach Brent Rastetter took six of his own wrestlers, a Mansfield Senior wrestler, and wrestlers from eight other schools to the 2014 Scholastic Duals Team Championships. Named the Ohio Raptors, Rastetter’s team finished seventh among 47 teams in the District/All-Star Division, posting an 8-3 overall record.
Matches were wrestled over four days at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Needless to say, the event offered rugged competition. “We had a young man on our team named Tyler Warner from Claymont. He is a two-time defending state champion in Ohio. He went 7-4 at this tournament,” Rastetter said.
“The competition is just unbelievably tough. There are no easy matches down here,” he said.
Among the local wrestlers, all of whom will be seniors this fall, Drew Kasper from Lexington and Jesse Palser from Mansfield Senior both posted 9-2 records. Lexington’s Brandon Leynaud was 7-4. Palser finished second in his weight class at the 2014 Division I state tournament while Kasper and Leynaud were both state qualifiers in Division II.
Other Lexington wrestlers who competed at Disney were seniors-to-be Jon Watkins (state qualifier), Nate Temple (7th in the state this past season), Max Baker (4th in the OCC meet last year) and Ronald Kahoun (8-3 record last year.)
Rastetter credits Jacob Kasper, one of his assistants in Florida, for helping find and recruit wrestlers from other schools, including Claymont, Wadsworth, Steubenville, Milan Edison, Toledo Central Catholic, Indian Lake, Hillsboro and West Holmes.
“He did a fantastic job of finding these kids,” Rastetter said. “I left it him to put it together. The kids all wrestled well and we had a great time off the mats, too. This was a great bunch of kids.”
It was Rastetter’s first time at the national event. “It’s been a fun experience. It’s not often you get to coach a team that has nine starters who medaled at the state meet and four others who were state qualifiers,” he said.
Each member of the Raptors earned a medal for their team success and Palser and Kasper also got bronze medals for their individual achievements.
A team from Pennsylvania won the title again this year, but teams from Ohio finished 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th.
“That just shows you the great wrestling we have in Ohio,” Rastetter said. “Just think about the team we could put together if we took just one team down there. But it’s great to get a lot of kids this kind of experience.”
Rastetter said the national event provided invaluable experience for his team. “The kids walk off the mat with greater confidence knowing they can compete at this level. It also showed us what we need to work on during the rest of the off-season before we transition into the regular season,” Rastetter said.
And if that regular season ends with Raptor kids on the podiums in March, the wrestlers can look back to a week in late June in Florida that helped make it possible.
Ohio Raptors
Jesse Palser of Mansfield Sr
Drew Kasper of Lexington
Brandon Leynaud of Lexington
Jon Watkins of Lexington
Ronald Kahoun of Lexington
Nate Temple of Lexington
Max Baker of Lexington
Maxx Peters of Claymont
Garrett Harding of Claymont
Tyler Warner of Claymont
Alex Jones of Wadsworth
Shane Mast of Wadsworth
Tariq Wilson of Steubenville
Even Cheek of Edison
Josh Mossing of Toledo Central Catholic
Reyse Wallbrown of Indian Lake
Toby Warrington of Hillsboro
Ashton Eyler of West Holmes
