ASHLAND — He collected the Ohio Cardinal Conference Wrestler of the Year award Saturday afternoon, but Ashland’s Brady Welch would gladly trade it for the team trophy.
Wrestling up a weight class, Welch won an OCC title at 190 pounds but the short-handed Arrows lost what would have been their record-tying seventh team championship by a scant three points.
West Holmes won the event with 221.5 points. Ashland, which was without 120-pounder Roman Parobek, was second with 218.5.
A projected Division II state finalist at 175, Welch accomplished something not even Ashland legend and 2019 Division I state champ Josh Bever could pull off.
“He’s the first to win Wrestler of the Year since I’ve been here,” veteran Ashland coach Sean Seder said.
The award was a little hollow for Welch, who was 5-0 on the day to run his season record to 34-3. He pinned his way through the first four rounds of the round-robin event before scoring a 13-5 major decision over Madison Hunter Hutcheson.
“It’s kind of cool, but I would have rather had the team award,” said Welch, who pinned his first three opponents in 13, 16 and 19 seconds. “We’ve got some guys sick.
“It’s obviously not the circumstance you want to be in but (the Wrestler of the Year award) is a little icing on the cake.”
Had Parobek been available, the Arrows likely would have won their sixth team title in the past seven years.
“I’m not one to make excuses,” Seder said. “We had guys fill in and they wrestled well. We just didn’t quite get it done.”
Ashland had three other weight class champs in Griffin Adkins (138), Jon Metzger (157) and Cayden Spotts (285). Like Welch, Spotts was wrestling up a weight class. The undersized sophomore picked up a thrilling 2-1 tie-breaker win over Mount Vernon’s Nate Stradley in the final match of the day. He was initially awarded a takedown in the final seconds of regulation but the takedown was ruled to have come after time expired.
“I did a little celebratory back handspring-type thing but realized time was out before I got the takedown,” Spotts said. “I just had to recuperate and go from there.”
Spotts weighed in Saturday at 213 pounds.
“The least I could weigh (to wrestle 285) was 212,” said Spotts, who improved to 29-12. “I chugged a couple bottles of water before I weighed in.
“What it really comes down to is it’s all about technique. It’s not easy giving up all those pounds, but technique helps out a lot.”
Mansfield Senior boasted a pair of individual champs in 165-pounder Leo Hess and 215-pounder Mekhi Bradley. Hess secured his title with an exciting 4-3 decision over Ashland’s Angelo Seitz to improve to 28-3 on the season.
Bradley secured his second OCC title in three years with a thrilling 5-3 win over West Holmes’ Elisha Baldridge in his final match of the day. He improved to 32-4 on the season.
Madison’s Michael Thomas won a championship at 120.
Mount Vernon had four weight class winners. Senior Colton Spurgeon was 4-0 at 126 to improve to 36-4 on the season. Rylan Firebaugh was 5-0 at 132, while Jake Taylor was 5-0 at 150 and Zach Thomas was 5-0 at 175.
