Plymouth's Sparks remains undefeated

ORANGE TWP. — Behind standouts Colton Sparks and Cam Wagers, the Plymouth wrestling team placed fourth out of 17 teams on Saturday at the Mapleton Dave Rohr Classic. The Big Red scored 157 points as Sparks (190 pounds) and Wagers (113) finished as individual weight class champions. South Central (130.5) was sixth and Western Reserve (74) was 11th. Sparks won five matches to improve to 25-0 on the season. The No. 5-ranked wrestler in the state in Division III according to the borofanohio.net rankings opened with four pins in 40 seconds, 1:31, 1:15 and 55 seconds. Facing Mansfield Senior's Leo Hess (25-4) — the No. 6-ranked wrestler in Div. II at 175 — in the finals, Sparks claimed a 7-4 win to earn Most Valuable Wrestler honors at the tournament. Wagers (23-2) — ranked No. 17 in the state — began his tournament with an 11-3 major decision, followed by a pin in 43 seconds, then consecutive technical falls by scores of 17-1 and 18-3. In a potential Firelands Conference championship preview, Wagers then edged South Central sophomore Diton Farnsworth (22-7) with a 7-5 decision in the finals. Farnsworth had two pins in 40 seconds and 2:55, along with a default win and an 11-2 major decision to reach the final. Also for the Big Red, No. 16-ranked Andrew Miller (16-6) reached the final at 126 with three pins in one minute, 50 seconds and 27 seconds. Other placers for Plymouth included Ben Trimmer (132) taking third; Zach Miller (150) was fourth; Hunter McClure (165) was fifth; and both Cayle Pope (138) and Riley Huston (175) placed sixth. The Trojans had three others reach the finals and place second along with Farnsworth. At 165, freshman Dixon Blanton (15-9) posted four straight pins in 3:00, 2:57, 3:05 and 1:47 to reach the finals, where he was edged in a 4-2 decision by New Philadelphias Edgar Mejia-Ramos. Senior Hayden Berry (18-4) went 3-1 at 175, which included a 28-10 technical fall win to start, followed by pins in 1:11 and 3:58. He also lost a tight 4-3 decision in the finals to Northwestern's Collin Good. Freshman Trevor Hudson also went 2-1 to take second at 120. Also for the Trojans, Alex Hamons (215) was fourth and Cole Frankhart (132) was fifth. For Western Reserve, Xzavian Meagrow was third at 120, followed by Riley Lutz (106), Drake Munroe (138) and Levi Podraski (165) in fourth; and Anthony Lierenz in fifth.