Kenton High School Coed Varsity Wrestling finishes 13th place at Invitational @ Triad High School

The Kenton High School Wrestling team competed at the Triad Invitational this past weekend placing thirteenth out of sixteen teams from many division one, two and three schools.  Elgin came out on top as a team scoring 263 points followed by Upper Arlington 225 and Marysville 202.5 for third. 

Junior, Anthony Hunt and Senior, Antonio Petitt were the only Wildcats to place in the tough large tournament.  

Hunt, wrestling at the 150 lbs weight class, was seeded as the number one wrestler, but had a strong field of wrestlers in the 4×3 pool bracket.  In the pool rounds he quickly defeated Abraham Peshko of Jonathan Alder and Gary Keener of Northwestern by pin in just over a minute in the first period.  In the first round of the eight man bracket, Hunt faced and also pinned Zackary Cooper of Marysville in just one minute and thirty-three seconds to reach the semi-finals to take on Upper Arlington’s Danny Toohey. 

Unfortunately, Hunt came up short and lost to Toohey by a score of 3-0 that dropped him down to the third place match.  The first period was scoreless with only two shot attempts.  Toohey was first, but was well defended by Hunt and was then called out of bounds.  The official brought them back to the center and Hunt got in on a good single-leg attack.  It looked like he was going to be able to finish it for a takedown, but Toohey held him off and forced a stalemate to end the period.

Toohey chose bottom to start the second and after some hand fighting, Toohey was able to stand up and earn the first point of the match with an escape.  Hunt quickly took another great shot with a high crotch on the left leg and changed up to a double leg down to the mat, but Toohey scrambled once again and somehow was able to keep Hunt from finishing and got another stalemate call. After the restart, Hunt attacked the right leg off the whistle, but got stuck under Toohey and after a little scrambling; Toohey was able to score a takedown with a merkle to end the second to put the score at 3-0 for the match.

Hunt chose nuetral for the third period and fired off five more attacks, but was unable to score a takedown.  Toohey gave up a stall warning, but it was enough to keep Hunt from scoring and won the match 3-0 to advance to the finals match where he later lost to state ranked Kaiden Luikart from Elgin 6-3.

Hunt faced Matthew Christison from West Liberty-Salem in his final match for the tournament.  The first period was scoreless, but Hunt chose bottom to start the second and scored an escape point.  Shortly after, Christison attempted a double leg takedown, but Hunt countered with a lateral whip and step over to put Christison on his back and pinned him at 2:43 to win the third place for the tournament. Hunt’s record on the season now stands at 17-4.

Antonio Petitt competed in the 132 lb weight class.  Initially, Petitt went 1-1 in the pool rounds defeating Hayden McDonald from Upper Arlington 12-6, but fell to Ryder Brown of West Jefferson.  With the one loss, he was dropped down to the fifth place 4-man bracket. Petitt defeated Cameron Mingee of Northwestern in his first bracket match 9-7 with a last second takedown, but then lost a heart breaker against Gavin Rhodes of Elgin in the fifth place match giving up a takedown near the end of the third period on the edge of the mat losing in a 5-3 decision. Petitt placed sixth in the tournament.

Wildcats travel to face Wapakoneta Thursday night and then compete in the two day tournament in VanBuren this weekend.

Complete results can be found on Baumspage: https://www.baumspage.com/wr/triad/2022/2023%20Brackets.htm