ELWOOD, Ind. —
Elwood hosted the Super Six wrestling tournament and as most people expected the Alexandria Tigers walked away with the title by finishing undefeated on the day.
The host Panthers finished 3-2 along with Blackford and Eastbrook while Shenandoah went 1-4 and Crispus Attucks ended the day 0-5.
Alexandria coach Jack Grimaldi said that the Super Six turned out to be everything he expected and a little more with his freshmen giving his team a spark.
“Well, a little more than we expected,” said Grimaldi of his team’s performance. “We felt we would have a good day, but I thought the kids wrestled well and better than we were thinking — especially our new guys — that we didn’t know. They were untested so we were real pleased with how the new kids wrestled.”
Two of the wrestlers he mentioned were Nathan Dulworth at 120 pounds went undefeated and Austin Neill.
After finishing up the day 5-0 Grimaldi’s message to his wrestlers was that they did what they were supposed to do, and all their hard work paid off.
“That they did their job, they worked hard and their hard work paid off,” Grimaldi told his team after the tournament. “We’ve got things to work on. That was the first step. Now we have to keep taking one step forward and keep wrestling.”
Alexandria’s Luke Blanton, who went 5-0, said that this was his first matches since coming off of surgery for a torn meniscus, but he said that due to the intensity of his team’s practices he didn’t feel rusty.
“We usually go pretty hard in the (wrestling) room,” said Blanton. “I usually go with my coach or practice partner Lincoln Kyle. We usually go really hard, so we always simulate matches in practice. So it was pretty good.”
Blanton and Attucks’ Charlie Baker were both named the Most Outstanding Wrestlers of the Super Six.
Elwood coach Fred Short said that he used the Super Six to see where his kids are at, and the one thing he found out was that they need better conditioning.
“I’m looking at it as a gage for what we need to do in practice,” he said. “I’m surprised, we’re usually in better shape than this but we had some freshmen huffing and puffing. They said, ‘I’m alright’ but I’m like, ‘we practice for two hours and you’re huffing and puffing after six minutes. That’s not good.’”
Short said that after seeing that his wrestlers weren’t in the proper shape for meets that he would be letting them know in practice that they need to work harder.
“Work harder,” he said of his message when they return to practice. “That’s what we’ve been trying to preach is to work harder, work harder. The intensity is not there. I mean Alex thumped us (48-27).”
Elwood’s coach also said that his team will be much more improved and competitive once they get some off the mat things cleared up. He said that those should be taken care of this coming week.
Will Maluvac and Sammy Mireles got praised for going undefeated on the day for Elwood. Maluvac wrestled at 195, while Mireles wrestled at 182. Short said Mireles’s normal weight class is 170, and that he is a light 170 coming in at about 163 pounds.
The Panthers had to take four disqualifications in each match due to these issues.
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Related Photos
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At 145 pounds, Alexandria's Luke Blanton wrestles Blackford's Lane Christman during the Elwood Super Six on Saturday. Don Knight / The Herald Bulletin
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Alex wrestlers take down field at Elwood
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