MADISON TOWNSHIP — Ashland reclaimed the wrestling crown Saturday afternoon inside Wayne E. Miller Gymnasium — and sent notice to the rest of the Ohio Cardinal Conference in the process.
The Arrows don’t intend to abdicate the throne anytime soon.
Freshmen Mason Bauer and Guardian Miller and junior Cooper Smith won individual titles as Ashland powered to the OCC team title with a score of 271.5 points.
Mount Vernon (237.0) was second and West Holmes (225.5) was third. Madison (128.5), Lexington (67.0), Wooster (53.0) and Mansfield Senior (2.0) rounded out the field.
The team title was the seventh for the Arrows. Ashland last won the crown in 2021, capping a sensational six-year run that included four straight OCC Championships from 2016 to 2019.
In addition to the three champs, Ashland boasted five runners-up Saturday. Three of them were underclassmen.
“We’ve got a good mix of veterans and youth and they all wrestled really tough today,” first-year Ashland coach Tommy Bauer said after the Arrows collected the team trophy. “We had a hard week of practice to get ready for the postseason and this kind of kick-starts us.”
Bauer’s son, freshman Mason Bauer, kick-started Ashland’s march to the championship with a dominating performance at 106 pounds. The younger Bauer, the sixth-ranked Division I 106-pounder in the state, was 4-0 with four pins.
Fellow freshman Guardian Miller was even more dominating on his way to the 126-pound title. Miller was 5-0 with five first-period pins, including falls of 16 and 19 seconds.
Ashland’s other individual title came from Cooper Smith at 190 pounds. The junior beat West Holmes’ Dylan Sours 4-2 in the finals.
Freshmen Max Ohl (113) and Isaak Wickham (132) and sophomore Dallas Hall (138) were runners-up, along with seniors Noah Fent (150) and Cayden Spotts (215).
A two-time state qualifier, Spotts fell 4-1 to Mount Vernon’s Alex Taylor in the finals in what was arguably the match of the day. Taylor a sophomore, finished third at the Division I state meet at 215 as a freshman.
“That could potentially be a second-round state tournament match,” Bauer said. “That was high-level wrestling.”
Taylor agreed.
“I kind of figured that was going to be the match-up in the finals,” Taylor said. “Wrestling a kid like that, a two-time state qualifier and looking for his third, that is the best competition I could ask for.”
Mount Vernon, which won the team title last year, put four wrestlers atop the podium Saturday. In addition to Taylor, Brock Blankenhorn (113), Jake Taylor (157) and Hayden Higgins (165) all won titles.
“Our goal was to win the (team championship) again, so that stings,” Taylor said. “That’s motivation for us. It will get us in the right head-space and show us how much harder we still need to work.”
Madison boasted a pair of individual champs in 120-pounder Mike Thomas and 285-pounder Jaxin Stancombe.
Thomas was 5-0 with four pins, while Stancombe, a sophomore who was an OCC runner-up last year, beat New Philadelphia’s Garrett Dillon-Rine 5-3 in the finals. It was a rematch of last year’s semifinal match, also won by Stancombe.
“It was a close match,” Stancombe said. “I thought I could get him after beating him last year in the semifinals. He’s obviously gotten better, too.”