For a young Wawasee wrestling squad, Tuesday night should have opened their eyes. In what has been a relatively lopsided matchup in recent years was razor thin Tuesday as Concord pushed Wawasee to the limit in McCuen Gym.

Tied at 36 with two matchups left, Wawasee ran decision and pin from Brody Young and Carson Nine, respectively, to escape with a 45-36 Northern Lakes Conference win.

The feel good part of the show came from the final two contests, where Young won the only contest that didn’t end with six points in a 5-0 decision over Micah Pfeil. Clinging to just a 2-0 lead heading into the third, Young worked off bottom to get an escape, and sealed the deal with a late takedown to ride out the critical three points. That made it academic for Nine, just don’t lose. Always easy to say, but it put the pressure on Nine once again, who has come through a several occasions in his career with wins to bail out team points. His stick and pin of Bryce Ramirez with 20 seconds left in the first sealed another tough dual win.

“I actually told him after the match, good job Mr. Clutch!,” stated Wawasee head coach Jamie Salazar. “He’s been really good in those situations where the bright lights are on him, but we shouldn’t have to keep putting guys like him in that position a lot. You get in these spots and sometimes you’re wrestling not to lose instead of wrestling to win. Thankfully Carson wrestled to win. Good win for him.”

Wawasee knew it was going to be up against it before the jump with another set of forfeitures at 285 and 106, but a pair of Concord pins by Jacob Bemiller and Logan Whitman against Alex Dibble and Derek Morrison left the Warriors down 24-6 after five classes announced. Donnie Blair had the lone six for Wawasee in that stretch with an academic pin of Elias Santiago a few seconds before the end of the first.

The Warriors recovered with three pins in a row from Kaleb Salazar, Jaxon Senter and Cam Senter to tie the match at 24, starting a pinball of sixes to move the needle to 36-36 after Concord’s Brycen Brosmen finally put away Thomas Sigsbee late in the third. Gaige Boyd got a pin and Ethan Rodriguez received a forfeit while Donovan Cunningham got Zeke Spore on his back to keep the Minutemen alive.

“A lot of the added pressure puts people in panic mode,” Salazar said. “We tell them just go have fun. Stay calm, then go get the job done. In situations where it’s tight on the scoreboard, instincts are to not lose, and that’s where people make a lot of mistakes. You’ll see some higher caliber wrestlers end up giving up points because they have too much pressure on themselves, worrying about things they can’t control.”

After a tough weekend where Wawasee went 2-3 at its home December Duals including two NLC losses to Plymouth and Northridge, Salazar wanted to see what kind of rebound his crew had. The response, rather, was somewhat sluggish and prompted a response of ‘consistency’ from the head coach following the match.

“We are just needing consistency right now across the board with these younger guys,” Salazar said. “Carson, Thomas Sigsbee tossed in there late, he hung around for quite a while, did a nice job. Right now it’s a flip of the coin with a lot of our weight classes. We have a little depth at some of the weights, but a lot of them are really young. We need some consistency out of these youngsters.”

Wawasee’s boys are off until next Friday, Dec. 29, when the two-day Al Smith Invite opens up. The mega grinder tourney is the annual barometer, and with Wawasee now heading east for its state tournament run, there is a greater push for results given several of the major players from the sectional and regional level will be there.

“Right now with the Al Smith, we just need to focus on doing the job,” Salazar said looking ahead to Mishawaka. “We have a little bit of a break and we’ll do a little team bonding to get the guys to realize we are out here to have fun. When we get back to it, the Al Smith will tell you where you’re at. The competition there is about as good as you’ll see, so we need to bring it, show ’em who we are.”

Wawasee at Concord

175 – Jacob Bemiller (C) pin Alex Dibble 1:23  0-6
190 – Donnie Blair (W) pin Elias Santiago 1:44  6-6
215 – Logan Whitman (C) pin Derek Morrison 4:16  6-12
285 – Jeremiah Riffel (C) forfeit  6-18
106 – Tavion Reach (c) forfeit  6-24
113 – Kaleb Salazar (W) pin Kaiden Braden 5:17  12-24
120 – Jaxon Senter (W) pin Diego Leon :20  18-24
126 – Cam Senter (W) pin Joseph Borkholder :42  24-24
132 – Donovan Cunningham (C) pin Zeke Spore 4:00  24-30
138 – Gaige Boyd (W) pin Aiden Vandemark :38  30-30
144 – Ethan Rodriguez (W) forfeit 36-30
150 – Brycen Brosmen (C) pin Thomas Sigsbee 5:34  36-36
157 – Brody Young (W) dec Micah Pfeil 5-0  39-36
165 – Carson Nine (W) pin Bryce Ramirez 1:40  45-36

JV Matches

Garrett Tittle (W) pin Jordan Watson 1:00
Dai’Brian Emerson (C) pin Connor Lopez :09
Riley Young (C) pin Adam Jackson 1:54
Greyson Snapp-Williams (C) pin Anthony Hughes 1:59
Kryon Cantu (W) pin Anthony Rivera 4:20
Benji Brace (W) pin Terrance Poindexter 1:25
Blake Rolston (W) pin Lucas Whitman 5:09
Will Hoy (W) pin Giancarlo Mejia 3:47
Collin Boots (C) pin Treyvonn Senders 3:47