Sussex Central claims Henlopen North mat title

Benny MitchellHeadlines, Sports

Sussex Central’s Talan Savage controls Nathan Moore of Caesar Rodney in their 132 pound match Wednesday night. Moore won by pin in 5:26, photo by Kenny Correll

 

Camden- Coaches normally going into a match with a script of how they expect a dual meet to go. Before the midway point of Wednesday night’s match both coaches probably abandoned that script as the match saw two big upsets.

Sussex Central won eight of the 14 bouts as they claimed the Henlopen Conference Northern Division dual meet championship for the first time since 2011 with a 37-27 victory.

“I told them before the match things aren’t always going to go our way, we’re going to meet adversity, somebody is going to lose that we didn’t expect to lose and I challenged the boy this week, who is going to step up,” Sussex Central head coach Shane Miller said.

Adversity struck early for the Golden Knights as number two ranked Talan Savage at 132 pounds faced number four ranked Nathan Moore. Savage led the match 6-2 in the third period when Moore scored a reversal and put Savage to his back. Moore recorded the pin in 5:26. The Riders Craig Dixon followed with an 8-2 decision at 138 pounds as Caesar Rodney took a 9-0 lead to start the evening.

The Golden Knights got on the board with a decision by Andrew Long at 144 pounds before fifth ranked Jadyn Drummond pulled the second upset of the night at 150 pounds. The Riders number two ranked Cody Waski scored an early takedown in the match. Drummond scored a reversal and turned that into a pin in 1:43 tying the match at 9-9.

Cameron Cataldi responded with a pin in 1:55 at 157 pounds for Caesar Rodney, but the Golden Knights reeled off three straight pins by Justyn Craig (165), Gabe Cannon (175) and Ivan Neal (190) giving Sussex Central a 27-15 lead just past the midway point of the match.

In a back and forth battle at 215 the Riders Owyn Meister recorded a pin in 4:26 as Caesar Rodney closed the gap to 27-21.

The final four bouts went back and forth between the two teams as Mike Harmon won a 1-0 decision at 285 pounds and Evan Cordrey won a 3-2 decision at 126 pounds for the Golden Knights while Alex McEvoy won an 8-4 decision at 106 pounds and Nick Moore scored a 4-2 decision at 120 pounds for Caesar Rodney.

“My seniors stepped tonight,” Miller said.

Caesar Rodney finished the dual meet season 10-2 and will await where they will be seeded in the upcoming DIAA Division I dual meet state tournament.

“It’s tough to be on the short end of the match, but we had some guys go out there battle and step up when we needed it tonight. The atmosphere was electric which is great. We will get in the room and get back to work and prepare for the state duals and conference tournament,” Caesar Rodney head coach Trey Mitchell said.

Sussex Central finished 20-0 and should be the number one seed when the wrestling committee meets on Sunday as they have defeated all of the teams that should fill out the tournament field.

“It will be nice to go into there with that number one seed, but like I said anybody can beat anybody on any given day especially this year,” Miller said.

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