Published: November 28, 2007 11:44 pm            

PREP ROUNDUP: Western wins at the wire

Eastern grapplers top Kokomo; TC, Taylor win in girls hoops

Western sophomore Billy Heady won the 125-pound match by decision to lift the Panthers past Northwestern 38-36 in a Howard County wrestling clash Wednesday night.

The Tigers held a one-point advantage with two matches remaining. The Tigers had no one for the 119 match, where the Panthers planned to use Heady, and the Panthers had no one for the 125 match. The Panthers opted to double forfeit at 119 and move Heady up to 125 in order to have a chance at the win.

“That is a tough position for a 16-year-old kid — he is out there in the middle of the gym floor all by himself and if he wins, his team wins, and if he loses, his team loses,” Western coach Chad Shepherd noted. “No one thinks about the other 13 matches leading up to that match. He went out and did a nice job.”

Also for Western, Jeff Durbin (135 pounds) and Drew Boruff (160) recorded pins and Logun Taylor (145) won by technical fall. Western picked up forfeit wins at 130, 215 and 112.

“For the most part, we wrestled pretty well. We still have some kids who need to knock some rust off. That was only our second match. We’re still feeling our way through and trying to polish some things up,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd praised Durbin and Boruff for solid performances.

“Jeff Durbin was actually losing. He is a freshman and this was the first varsity match of his career. He just kept fighting. In the third period, he got the kid on his back, pinned him and won,” he said.

Boruff rallied for a pin in the second period of his 160 match.

Western wrestles in the Taylor Super Six on Saturday. Northwestern competes at South Adams the same day.

Eastern 54, Kokomo 21

Cody Young (130), Chad Barrett (135), Kyle Stiner (140), Anthony Laughman (160), Chad Coolbaugh (215) and Kyle Land (285) recorded pins to highlight the Comets’ decisive win.

Also for the Comets, Tyler Fording (125) and Drew Smith (152) claimed decisions. The Comets won two other matches by forfeits.

“It’s always nice to see your (established) guys like Coolbaugh, Land and Barrett get pins, but it was nice to see some of our younger guys and some of the guys who aren’t normally in the limelight coming through with wins,” Eastern coach Craig Standish said. “Tyler Fording, a freshman, started us off with a narrow decision at 125. Cody Young, who has had a nice season so far, came out and picked up a big pin for us. And Drew Smith won a close match. Those guys set the momentum for us.

“It’s nice we’re not relying on the same guys all the time. It was a pretty solid team performance.”

Kokomo’s winners were Trevor Brookshire (112), Joe Surack (119), Dylan Green (189) and Rico Duke (171).

Kokomo wrestles in the Taylor Super Six on Saturday. Eastern (6-1) returns to action a week from today against Western.

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Taylor 77, Tipton 52

Shelby Wall and Teri Oliver combined for 52 points to lead the Titans to their third straight win.

“This is three games in a row now we’ve scored right at 80 points,” Taylor coach Dennis Bentzler. “We had 25 field goals with 20 assists (Wednesday), and that tells me we’re hitting the open man. And, we also got to the free throw line 30 times. We did some good things.”

The Titans (3-3) led 23-12 after the opening quarter, 36-27 at halftime and 52-36 after three quarters.

Wall scored 27 points, Oliver followed with 25 points, Taylor Allen had 11 points and Liz Mamaril offered nine points and five assists.

“Teri was two assists and one rebound short of a triple-double. She had a tremendous game,” Bentzler said.

“Everyone is starting to do what they’re capable of doing, but we still have an awful lot of work to do defensively and rebounding,” he added. “We’re just not real physical or real strong, so we have to keep working on that part of the game. But offensively, everyone is comfortable right now.”

Courtney Comer led Tipton with 15 points.

Tri-Central 49, Madison-Grant 44

Amber Suiters scored 13 points to lead a balanced attack in the Trojans’ win. Rachel Hewitt followed with eight points and Morgan Suiters, Sally Adams and Kelly Walter each netted six points. Adams also dished out four assists.

Madison-Grant (4-1) came in with an undefeated record and had beaten Hamilton Heights — a team that beat Tri-Central.

“We knew (the Argylls) were going to be a tough team coming in and I think this maybe gave us a little bit of a gauge on how we’re progressing early on,” said TC coach Kathie Layden, whose squad improved to 3-2.

“I thought overall, our scoring and everything was fairly balanced. We had a lot of people contribute in different ways. As a team, I thought we played really hard and we distributed the ball well.”

Walter finished with a nice all-around line of six points, six steals and four rebounds.

“For a freshman, she definitely gives us a spark with her athletic ability,” Layden said. “We can tell that every day and every game, she is catching on to little things and she continually improves.”

Bryan Gaskins compiled this roundup.

        

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