In recent sectional and divisional high school wrestling tournaments, the Mount Vernon yellow Jackets placed third (sectional) and eighth in regional, and the team saw 10 wrestlers move forward to the regional, then several more move on after the regional.
At the Watkins Memorial Sectional on Feb. 26, in Pataskala, the Jackets placed third out of 12 competing teams. Olentangy Berlin won it with 225.5 points, Westerville North was second with 221.5, and Mount Vernon finished third with 189.5.
In this event, Mount Vernon’s Dylan Hartman took home the gold, winning his 113-pound weight class by a major decision over Bobby Davies (Canal Winchester) 8-0;
Taking second place (losing in the final round) were Brock Blankenhorn at 106, pinned by Julien Kleiv (Hilliard Bradley); Colton Spurgeon, losing in a technical fall (126 lbs.) to Brennen Cernus (Pickerington Central) 16-1; at 150, Jake Taylor was second to Gabe Droesch (Watkins Memorial) in a 6-4 decision; and at 285, Robert Snyder (Hilliard Bradley) was decisioned Nate Stradley, 3-2.
Finishing in third at 175, Zach Thomas decisioned Hugh Peterson (Olen. Berlin) 3-2.
In fourth at 132, Rylan Firebaugh was decisioned by Caden Ellison (Hilliard Bradley); at 144, Logan Moore was decisioned by Andrew Davis (Westerville North),4-2; and at 165, Kyler Howard was pinned by Dallas Reed (Westerville North).
In fifth at 120, Aden Burdulis pinned Quinn Kahkonen.
In Hartman’s championship 113-pound weight class run, Hartman’s biggest obstacle was his bloody lip. From the beginning of the first period to the middle of the match, he used up all of his blood time. Hartman kept his mouth shut over his lip for the entire third period, to make sure his lip would not bleed, or he would lose the match.
Two Yellow Jackets seniors were injured and could not wrestle in sectionals. Gabe Shannon and Conner Lang were past district qualifiers who missed the event.
At the Hilliard Darby District Tournament, Division I, March 3-4, Mount Vernon finished eighth of 47 teams (38 scoring teams). Dublin Coffman ran away with the competition with 247.0 points; Olentangy Liberty finished second, 100 points behind, at 147.0. Mount Vernon was had 77 points.
The top Jackets performance was Colton Spurgeon’s second-place finish at 126 pounds, losing in the final to Dublin Coffman’s Omar Ayoub by a 9-3 decision. Finishing in third place at 285, Nate Stradley decisioned Tyler O`Reilly (Westerville South), 3-2.
In fourth at 106, Brock Blankenhorn lost a 7-5 OT decision to Kurt Mokros (Olentangy).
Dylan Hartman, the previous event winner at 113, finished fifth, defeating Nick Piontkowski (Olentangy) by default.
