PPT Slide
Outsiders face tough wrestling sectional
NORTH CANTON — Wooster High School won the Ohio Cardinal Conference wrestling title last weekend. New Philadelphia broke Claymont’s 15-year stranglehold on the East Central Ohio League. That, plus $5 for admission, will get the Generals, Quakers and their fans into this weekend’s Division I sectional tournament at Hoover High School. Outsiders Wooster, Green, Massillon and New Philadelphia likely will find out then they don’t get quite as much bang for their buck when competing against Federal League teams in the sectional. Last year, 17 Federal League athletes went to Columbus, and four returned as Ohio champions. Two, Perry’s Dustin Schlatter and Lake’s Mike Miller, return to defend their sectional, district and state crowns their senior season.
“This is what we train for,” Perry head coach Brian Dolph said. First-year Hoover head coach Greg Donahue, who co-coached Massillon last year, has discovered how tough it is battling Federal League opponents. The host Vikings won just one conference dual with a young team Donahue is building toward the 2006 season. “Perry is probably the most talented team,” Donahue said of the Panthers, last year’s state runner-up. “But the Federal League as a whole is stepping it up. Pound for pound, I’ll bet the Federal League is the best league in Ohio.” Ohio high school wrestling authority Brian Brakeman concurs. In his 34th edition of the Brakeman Report, Brakeman tabs Perry for second in the Division I team race, with Fitch fifth and Jackson ninth. Perry won last year’s sectional by more than 100 points over runner-up GlenOak and third-place New Philadelphia. The Panthers qualified a dozen to their own district.Besides Schlatter and Miller, the only other returning sectional winners are Jackson 103-pounder Dante Rini, who wrestled for Perry in 2004, GlenOak 215-pounder Nick Roman, who won at 189, and New Philly 215-pounder Mark Sexton. Dolph said Perry will be ready to wrestle Friday and Saturday. GlenOak tripped Perry 32-31 a week ago to give Lake a share of the league championship with the Panthers. The Golden Eagles’ win snapped Perry’s Federal League dual match streak dating to 1998 and gave the Blue Streaks a share of their first league championship since the 1993-1994 campaign. That loss wasn’t as heartbreaking to the Panthers as it might be for foes this weekend.“In reality, that was the best thing that could happen to us,” Dolph said. “We wrestled the best competition we could (Beast of the East, State Duals, Mayfield) early, then we wrestled three or four weeks in the Federal League on Thursdays, let kids wrestle up. We relaxed. “Maybe we were a little too relaxed. Now, it’s show no mercy.”
Brakeman has picked Perry’s Schlatter, at 145, and Lake’s Miller, at 160, to do just that. Schlatter is out to win his fourth individual title, and Miller his third straight. And Brakeman gives plenty of other Federal League wrestlers a good chance to win or place at state, starting with sectionals. Besides Schlatter, Perry has two wrestlers picked for the state finals in Chris Hartley (119) and Zach Mizer (130). The Panthers’ Thomas Straughn is also a solid candidate to win at state, coming off a fourth as a freshman.
