Saturday, March 04, 2000
7 local wrestlers in state finals
BY MARK SCHMETZER
Enquirer contributor
COLUMBUS — Seven area wrestlers — led by three Moeller Crusaders, undefeated Scott Smith of St.Xavier and Matt McIntire of Lakota West — will wrestle for state championships today in the 63rd annual Ohio high school wrestling tournament at Ohio State's Schottenstein Center today.
Semifinal wins by Joe Zinkan, Bobby Lyons and Nick Lukens on Friday night helped the Crusaders maintain the hold on second place they claimed in Friday's early session. If Moeller can finish second, it will be the highest finish by a Greater Cincinnati team in tournament history.
“We were hoping to give (defending champion Lakewood St.Edward) a little more of a challenge, but second place is still pretty good,” said Lukens, who beat Akron Springfield senior Tony Lovell 3-2 in the 171-pound semifinals.
Lukens completed Moeller's trio of qualifiers. Zinkan remained undefeated with a win over Worthington Thomas junior Greg Spivey, and Lyons improved to 38-1 with a pin of Bedford junior Ed Mahone.
“Bobby was down 4-0, and he came back,” Moeller coach Jeff Gaier said. “That's a good sign when you can respond like that to being behind.”
McIntire (130) again needed three rounds to outlast his opponent, St.Edward junior Nick Mann, and claim a 4-3 victory that sent him to 41-0. Smith (125), frustrated by Mayfield Village junior Dom Herrera's stalling tactics, was forced to overtime, where Herrera was warned twice about technical violations. Eventually, Smith was awarded a match-winning penalty point.
“I didn't want to have a match like that, but it was nice to go the whole match and get a challenge,” said Smith, who faces the biggest challenge of his career tonight in St.Edward senior Mark Jayne. The 39-0 Jayne already owns two state championships.
“I've got nothing to lose,” Smith said.
Also advancing to the Division I finals was Lakota East senior Erik Jones (189), whose path to a possible championship was smoothed with a quarterfinal loss by Huber Heights Wayne senior Alexander Lammers, the defending champion in that class.
The only non-Division I area wrestler to qualify for a championship was Reading senior Gary Blair, who will face Cleveland Cuyahoga Heights junior in the Division III finals at 160 pounds. Blair edged Bellaire St.John Central Catholic senior Daniel Koch 3-2 in the semifinals to improve his record to 43-1. Klinger finished fourth at 152 last year and is 34-3 this season.
“Gary's only the fifth wrestler to from Reading to be in the finals,” coach Dick Engel said.
Klinger was projected by wrestling analyst Brian Brakeman to win the 152-pound title before moving up to 160 and beating Galion Northmor sophomore C.B. Dollaway in the quarterfinals. Dollaway was Brakeman's pick to win at 160 pounds.
The championship round is scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
LISTERMANN RETIRES: Sycamore's Gary Listermann coached his last match Friday when Aviators senior Oliver Hyams lost in the consolation round.
Listermann is retiring as a coach, concluding a career that started when Richard Nixon was still in his first term as president.
“I've spent over half my life doing this,” said Listermann, 53. “I started out in 1970 as head coach.”
Listermann decided at the beginning of this season that it would be his last as a coach.
“I've had second thoughts, but it just takes too much energy,” he said. “I thought about it last season after the season that we had, but I decided to stick around for the nice, round 30.”
Listermann plans to continue teaching, he said.
State wrestling: Division I results
State wrestling: Division II results
State wrestling: Division III results
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