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By Gaylen Duskey SPORTS EDITOR
realfang@citlink.net
Calhoun County had three champions and one second-place finisher to become
the top Class AA-A team in the Point Pleasant Olympic Pool Tournament held
over the weekend.
"It is a different scoring system and you have to finish in the top four to
score any points," Calhoun coach Mike Stump said. "And you don't score any
points until you are out of your pool."
According to Stump, the tournament sets up two pools of wrestlers on the
first day and the top three advance to the second round where all the
scoring takes place.
Calhoun had 10 wrestlers finish in the top three in pool competition to
advance to the second round. Calhoun only fields wrestlers in 13 of the 14
weight classes with either 215 or heavyweight going open, depending at which
weight Justin Whipkey wrestles.
"It is a bit confusing but I think we helped ourselves wrestling in it since
the competition is so strong," Stump said.
Calhoun finished third overall behind AAA powerhouses Ripley and Nitro.
Ripley took the team title with 135 points while Nitro was second with 127.
Calhoun, with 109, was the only other school to score more than 100 points.
The Red Devils were 44 points better than the next highest AA-A school (host
Point Pleasant, which had 65) in the 12-team tournament, which included
three schools from Ohio.
Weight champions for Calhoun were Justin Ashley at 130, Andrew Cummings at
135 and Eric Metz at 152. Paul Goodrich was second at 160 while Bryan Gungle
(112), Justin Ramsey (125) and Justin Price (140) were third. Jaron Sampson
(119) was fourth while Dustin Carpenter (171) and Mike Roberts (189)
advanced to the championship pool but did not place.
The wins by Metz (9-0) and Ashley (7-0) kept them unbeaten on the season,
both with 15-0 records.
"I'm not sure how we would have done in a regular wrestling format . I think
we'd scored more points, but this was a real learning experience since it
showed us where we are and how much we need to do," Stump said. "It'll give
us something to work on during the break."
Calhoun returns to action with the Calhoun Triangular Dec. 30 at 1 p.m.,
along with Grafton and Roane County.
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