Wrestling: Seneca tops Ottawa, Dwight during triangular at Kingman Gym

OTTAWA – With regionals set to start next weekend, the Ottawa and Seneca wrestling teams used Wednesday’s triangular at Kingman Gym to continue to improve and hone their skills for the postseason.

The Fighting Irish (23-9) finished their regular season with a 54-24 win over Dwight in the evening’s opening dual before topping the Pirates, 60-21, in the final tilt, while between the hosts – which celebrated seniors Tristan Simmons, Tristan Wheeler, Aaron Butcher, Sarah Meyer and Cassie Nelson – topped the Trojans, 54-29.

Seneca received wins – all by pinfall – from Owen Feiner at 145 pounds, Asher Hamby at 152 and Nathan Grant at 160 against Dwight. Ottawa also won a trio of bouts via pins against the Trojans with victories by Christian Land at 152, Anthony Evans at 160 and Butcher at 285.

“Right now, we are really working on our offense. We’re trying to develop our shots and our setups more,” Seneca coach Todd Yegge said. “The one thing I was a little disappointed in tonight was our performance from the bottom position. We need to be able to score and get our ones from underneath – that cost us a bout tonight. Being able to get out from underneath is what a lot of times separates the state-caliber kids and the rest.”

The dual featuring the Pirates and Irish began at 120 pounds with Seneca’s Jaden Casey pinning Landon Marx in 1:07. At 126, Ottawa’s Malachi Snyder recorded a pair of takedowns before pinning Nick Grant with 31 seconds remaining in the second period to tie the match at 6-all.

“I’m fairly happy with how we wrestled tonight,” Ottawa coach Peter Marx said. “It’s so tough now. You have half your team last week, half your team this week and never seem to have the whole team all at the same time. As a coach, you’re always trying to patch work things and do the best you can. I mean, just today I find out I’ve lost my starting 152 and 160 pounders for five days to COVID protocols. It’s frustrating, but I think many wrestling programs are dealing with the same thing.”

In what proved to be the bout of the night, Simmons defeated Robby Nelson, 5-3, in overtime. Nelson used an early takedown in the first period to grab a 2-0 lead. Simmons then worked on top for much of the second and third periods before closing to 2-1 after Nelson received a stalling penalty. With 20 seconds left, Simmons earned a takedown, but Nelson scored a quick reversal to send the bout to extra time. Simmons then scored the winning takedown with five seconds remaining in overtime.

“The penalty point for stalling changed everything in the match,” Peter Marx said. “Before that, it was going to take a couple takedowns in the final 20 seconds, and that’s tough to do. Tristian had rode him four minutes and was not able to turn him, so I was hoping for him to just able to get it to overtime because I felt he had wore (Nelson) down. From there he was able to get the takedown for the win. He wrestled a good, smart match against an opponent that he knows well after wrestling against him in club. He did everything right, and it turned into a win for him.”

After a pair of Ottawa forfeits at 138 and 145, Asher Hamby pinned Land in 53 seconds at 152 to make it 24-9 in favor of Seneca. Grant picked up his second win of the night by building a 13-3 lead over Evans before getting a pinfall 25 seconds into the second period.

The Irish earned pinfalls in the next two bouts – Kyle Hamby (at :40 over Andrew Ristua at 170) and Chris Perua (at 1:48 over Charles Meadrow) – before Ottawa’s Ryan Wilson pinned Alex Bogner in 1:06 at 220. Liam Blue (at :22 over Butcher) and Kyler Nelson (at :26 over Jack Huggins) closed out the win for Seneca with pinfalls.

“I thought our overall performance tonight, especially against an Ottawa program that has always been a tough one for us to wrestle, was pretty good,” Yegge said. “We scored 60 points against them, and I feel had a match we should have won, so other than giving up some points we shouldn’t have, I’m pretty happy with how all the kids wrestled.”

Ottawa travels to Clifton Central on Thursday for a triangular with the Comets and Prairie Central. Seneca is off until it hosts a Class 1A regional Feb 5.