By Casey Moore<\/p>\n
Special to the Beacon Journal<\/p>\n
CUYAHOGA FALLS – Dave Rella couldn’t have dreamed of a better situation.<\/p>\n
Not only was the Walsh Jesuit senior wrestling in the 160-pound championship match at the Ironman Tournament, but he was also in his home gym and scheduled as the last championship match of the evening.<\/p>\n
“How else should it go down?” Walsh Jesuit coach Sonny Marchette asked rhetorically. “Any human being thrives on that sort of environment.”<\/p>\n
Rella would’ve hoped for a different result, as he was defeated 8-7 in a back-and-forth match against Mount St. Joseph (Md.) senior Mack Lewles. An escape by Rella with 10 seconds left cut the deficit to one, but he couldn’t earn a match-tying point.<\/p>\n
The tournament winner was Blair Academy (N.J.), which edged Cleveland St. Edward by a slim margin at 170.5-166.5. The two were deadlocked at 154.5 heading into the championship session.<\/p>\n
CVCA junior John Weakley was the only area champion, winning the 189-pound weight class by a 14-5 major decision over senior David Green from Oviedo (Fla.).<\/p>\n
The host Warriors, who finished ninth in the tournament, had two other wrestlers battling in the final session.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Chase Skonieczny won five matches on Saturday to come back and finish third at 130 pounds. Skonieczny went 1-1 on Friday and was in the consolation bracket heading into the morning session.<\/p>\n
“I don’t look at him as a sophomore,” Marchette said. “He’s an exceptional wrestler. He’s still young and can learn a lot more, but he’s one of those guys who’s always going to be there.”<\/p>\n
Walsh Jesuit senior Quentin Keyes (125) lost a hard-fought match against junior Kellen Russell. Keyes took a 1-0 lead into the final period before Russell worked back for a 3-1 decision.<\/p>\n
Perry also had three wrestlers participating in the last session.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Danny Genetin (103) cruised to a third-place finish over Elyria sophomore Steve Mitcheff, while junior Thomas Straughn battled to a fifth-place finish in his 145-pound weight class.<\/p>\n
St. Vincent-St.Mary had two wrestlers in the last session, including senior Josh Rohler who was edged by Blair Academy junior Eric Medina 9-6 in the 152-pound championship. Senior Marco Caponi (215) placed fourth.<\/p>\n
“I thought that would go the other way,” said St. V-M coach Anthony Gary about Rohler’s loss. “But finishing in the top 10 (tied for 10th) is one heck of an accomplishment in the best tournament in the country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Casey Moore Special to the Beacon Journal CUYAHOGA FALLS – Dave Rella couldn’t have dreamed of a better situation. Not only was the Walsh Jesuit senior wrestling in the 160-pound championship match at the Ironman Tournament, but he was also in his home gym and scheduled as the last championship match of the evening. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-tY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}