Published: January 24, 2009 10:27 pm      

WRESTLING: New weight, same result for EHS Barrett

Heights tops Peru for team championship; NW, Eastern finish in upper division

RUSSIAVILLE — Senior Chad Barrett has been, by coach Craig Standish’s account, the standard bearer for Eastern’s wrestling program, twice qualifying for the state finals at Conseco Fieldhouse and last year finishing sixth in the state.

Now Barrett, who captured the 140-pound weight class at the Mid-Indiana Conference meet Saturday at Western High School, can add four-time conference champion to his long list of accomplishments — one Standish believes is the first achieved for the Comets.

“To the best of my knowledge he’s in uncharted territory,” Standish said of Barrett, who began his string at 112 pounds as a freshman, then moved up to 119 as a sophomore and made the jump to 135 last year.

“It’s another one of those milestones he can put up on the side and say, ‘This is checked off my list, where do we go from here?’ He’s not going to be satisfied with [Saturday’s title]. It’s just a one-day thing and he’s not going to be satisfied until he’s wrestling Saturday night at Conseco.”

As anticipated, Hamilton Heights won the team title in a close struggle with Peru as the Huskies put up 239.5 points to the Bengal Tigers’ 220. It was Heights’ fifth straight conference championship.

There were plenty of pleasant surprises for Howard County teams, though. Northwestern was third with 160.5 points and the Comets were fourth with 144.5.

Maconaquah (137) was fifth with the host Panthers (128) sixth, Taylor (106.5) seventh and Lewis Cass (78) eighth.

For the usually stoic Barrett, with his almost Zen-like one-day-at-a-time approach at this time of the season, even he had to reflect for just a moment on winning four in a row.

“I usually took them one at a time, but after you start counting them up, I ended up with four my final year,” he said. “Right now I’m still in a mode where I take [matches] one week at a time, moving on to the next meet. I try not to get excited until I get to the big stage.”

Barrett edged Western’s Logun Taylor 7-3 for the 140 title in a match that was a stark contrast to their earlier meeting this season, when Barrett scored a technical fall in the second period.

Neither wrestler scored in the first period, with Taylor getting on the board in the second-period with an escape. After a Barrett takedown and a Taylor reversal, there was some controversy amongst coaches and officials about whether Barrett had scored an escape.

It was decided that Taylor hadn’t lost control with about 10 seconds remaining, but to no avail for him. Barrett returned to the down position for the restart, made the escape and then took down Taylor before the period ended for a 5-3 lead.

“I really didn’t care who got the points,” said Barrett. “I just wanted to keep the pace up … and I didn’t like all of the talking. It helped me flip the switch a little bit because I knew I needed to get some points and pick up the pace.

“[Taylor] just wrestled a good match against me and tried to keep it close. It was a lot different match than the first match. He definitely came out with a game plan the second time.”

Northwestern senior C.J. Hansen was successful in reversing an earlier loss to Maconaquah’s Devon Yoder at 160, and in doing so won his first conference title. Hansen pinned Yoder with a quick takedown in 1:23.

“I lost to [Yoder] over the Christmas break in the last few seconds, so I’ve been training pretty hard to come back for this day and to beat him,” said Hansen, who was the runner-up last year at 145, a 13-7 loser to George Markou, who finished eighth in the state.

“I’ve been working all summer, trying to come back better this year, my senior year.”

Hard work has been paying off for the Purple Tigers, who had three other champions — 112-pound sophomore Matt Miller, his second title; 119-pound freshman Jesse Goodnight, who beat Taylor’s Zach Davis 6-3, and 285-pound junior Evan Floyd, who pinned Western’s Trevor Buckalew in 1:40.

“C.J. is every coach’s dream,” Northwestern coach Scott Miller said. “He ranks No. 1 in his class, he comes to practice to work, you teach him a move and he drills until he learns it, and he steps out there with intensity.

“We wrestled up to our potential [Saturday]. … The guys that work real hard are getting paid for it. We teach it and they make it work. It’s a lot of fun to coach those guys.”

Barrett was Eastern’s lone finalist but the Comets got third-place finishes from Ty Smith (112), Zach Alexander (119), John Horner (125) and Dane DeWitt.

“Fourth place is a very respectable finish,” Standish said. “Heights and Peru are solid, and to finish in the top half of the conference is a pretty good accomplishment for us given the fact we’re still missing a couple starters.”

The Titans’ Christian Harvey, a sophomore, earned the first conference title of his career by default over Heights’ Tyler Shook at 171. Harvey was well in command when Shook could take no more pain in his shoulder.

Harvey said there is no bitter rivalry with the Huskies.

“We’re buddies from AAU wrestling and I go up to Heights and wrestle with them,” he said. “[Shook] has had cancer for a while and this is his first year back.

“All the guys at Heights are so good, they’re so friendly. They welcomed me with open arms to train with them.”

Taylor coach Justin Palmer said Harvey, who missed the second half of his freshman year, is still learning.

“Christian has been working so hard lately,” said Palmer. “He’s been listening to what we say. His throws are there but he doesn’t use them all the time. He’s just a tremendous athlete.

“Sometimes he’s probably a little too nice but it’s all business when he goes out there. He’s a terrific kid all the way around.”

Peru put six individuals in the finals with four victories — Shannon Garretson at 103, Aaron Garretson at 125, Dalton Sparks at 145 and Brett Worden at 189. Aaron Garretson and Worden are seniors.

“We had opportunities to close the gap [on Hamilton Heights] score-wise, but we had to be almost perfect and even score some upsets,” Bengals coach Andy Hobbs. “I thought we had some tight matches. All 14 kids placed for us.”

The Panthers were shut out of the medals as Casey Shue lost a last-second fall in the 103-pound title match, as well as the runner-up finishes by Taylor and Buckalew.

Defending 112-pound champion Austin Shepherd did not wrestle Saturday.

“We went out and wrestled hard. I didn’t have any complaints with that,” said coach Chad Shepherd. “We placed where we earned to place. If we want to do better next week [at the Oak Hill Sectional] we have to step up a bit.”

Maconaquah’s Austin Waite (135) and Cass’ Brady Tolle (215) both repeated as conference champions. Waite won the 125-pound title in 2008.