INDIANAPOLIS — The Ben Davis wrestling team traveled to Warren Central for the annual MIC Tournament on Jan. 19. Favorite and No. 4-ranked Warren Central hosted and won the event with a total of 261 points.
Center Grove scored 227 for second place, and the Giants followed in third with 172. Carmel came in fourth, one point shy of third.
“We said we could finish in the top two or three, and now I feel better because we beat Carmel twice [earlier in the season],” Ben Davis coach Aaron Moss said. “We finished the day well.”
The Giants had 10 of 14 wrestlers win their first match and were ranked a solid third after the first round. They trailed Warren Central by 17 and Center Grove by just four.
Then, the second round came and so did the losses.
Only three of the Giants’ 10 wrestlers advanced to their respective championship match and Ben Davis sat in fourth for the rest of the day.
In many of those semifinal matches, Ben Davis entered as the lower seed. Daniel McCarty (106) was the only lower seed to win. The sophomore won in a 4-3 tiebreaker against Terre Haute South senior Ryan Uppal (27-3).
At 285, Norman Oglesby suffered a sudden defeat in overtime to his Warren Central opponent. However, his victory in the third-place match (the final match of the day) gave the Giants enough points for third.
“Norman is a stud, we’re excited to see what he can do,” Moss said. “We’ve got a couple of other guys that we’re trying to get squared away for next week.”
One of those guys might be sophomore Dylan Lydy at 145. He was upset in the second round but did finish in third.
“It was one of the worst matches I’ve probably seen Dylan wrestle, but he bounced back and had a solid match for third,” Moss said. “He’s young, he’s only been wrestling for three years, so he’s got a lot to learn and a lot to do and we’ll see if we can get him there.”
Ben Davis seniors Cesar Gutierrez and Levi Moss took care of their competitions to join McCarty as the only three wrestlers to reach their respective championship matches.
Gutierrez and McCarty both lost in their championship matches, finishing second. Gutierrez lost in a tiebreaker.
Moss won at 132 pounds. In the final, he pinned Warren Central’s Trent Pruitt at the 1:18 mark of the first period. He continued his undefeated season (25-0), recording his 143rd career win and his fourth straight MIC title.
“It’s great to do it your senior year,” Moss said. “Not a lot of people have done it. It means a lot.”
The Giants fared well in the consolation brackets, which helped their total score. Only one wrestler took home an eighth-place finish.
Along with Lydy and Oglesby, Jacob Wynkoop (113), Jaylen Roth (126), and Dakota Williams (220) had third-place finishes.
The Giants finished up their dual meet season last week, ending with a 15-6 record. Next week Ben Davis begins sectional action.
“No reason to ever change the way you’re training,” Moss said. “If something’s working for you, keep going at it. I really have nothing to change, just got to keep working hard.”
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