By PEDRO VELAZCO
Tribune sportswriter
February 17, 2007 12:46 am
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INDIANAPOLIS — Western senior Trevor Dickey will carry the flag for local wrestlers today. Alone.
Dickey was the lone survivor of the four Howard County wrestlers and 11 Tribune-area grapplers entered in the first day of the IHSAA Individual Wrestling State Finals here at Conseco Fieldhouse Friday night.
Dickey beat Rushville’s Keith Duncan 7-2 in their first-round match Friday, advancing to today’s quarterfinals. He’s ensured a medal as one of the top eight 140-pounders. Today he’ll take a shot at greater glory.
Getting through his first match was a relief after the eye-opener of his first trip to the state finals. The day began with a parade of participants into the grandeur of the Conseco floor as the crowd began to filter in. Dickey knew it would be an experience, but couldn’t really be prepared for the shock of it.
“It’s something you have to experience for yourself,” said Dickey. “Nothing else is like it. You have to see it to believe it.”
Now that he’s safely through to today’s competition, he feels he’s past the most difficult adjustment.
“I feel a lot better now that I’m down here,” Dickey said. “I think I can go a lot farther now that I’m here. Everybody down here is good, so you’re all on the same level.”
Dickey (41-2) will face Munster’s Eric McGill (40-3) this morning. The quarterfinal round begins at 9:30 a.m. at Conseco Fieldhouse with the semifinals following as soon as the quarterfinals finish. The consolation rounds are at 5 p.m. and the finals follow at 7:30.
The Panther senior reached today’s action with a workmanlike victory in the round of 16. Dickey landed the first takedown and led 2-0 through the first period, then pushed his lead to 4-0 after two periods with a reversal. He gave up a takedown in the third, but scored an allowed escape point then registered the final takedown for the 7-2 scoreline.
“I was in control,” Dickey said. “I was a little sluggish from being nervous.
“I pretty much scored all I needed to. It was a close match decided by takedowns, so I had to get my scoring on my feet.”
Dickey beat Duncan in the regular season but said that didn’t give him much of an advantage Friday.
“Any time you wrestle somebody a second time, it’s going to be a different match,” Western coach Chad Shepherd said. “Trevor did what he had to do to win. We’ve got the first match under our belt. We’ve got to wrestle in the morning and see what happens.”
Panther teammate D.J. Shepherd entered as a champion from the Fort Wayne Semistate and drew a fourth-place wrestler from the Merrillville Semistate, but Griffith’s Steve Siokos topped the Panther 10-4 in 125-pound competition. D.J. Shepherd scored the first takedown but was down 3-2 by the end of the first period and never re-took the lead. Siokos won 10-4.
“One of them [Dickey] wrestled pretty hard, and the other one [D.J.] started pretty well, and I don’t know what happened. As good as we looked last week … I’m not sure,” Chad Shepherd said. “[Siokos] is pretty good. He had a good game plan. He wrestled us hard.”
D.J. Shepherd finished the season 41-2 and closed his career with his third trip to state.
“At least he was here,” Chad Shepherd said. “It probably wasn’t the finish he wanted.”
Kokomo’s Eddie Castro, another champion from the Fort Wayne Semistate, was ousted by Lawrence North’s Brandon Nelsen 6-2 after the two were tied at 2-2 following the first period.
Asked about Castro’s energy level, Kokomo coach Rob Leavitt said “He didn’t have any. You have to give the other kid credit, he came here to wrestle. You could tell [Castro] had a lot of nerves, and honestly didn’t wrestle real well. He didn’t wrestle the way he did last week. Last week he wrestled with a ton of energy, experience, and [Friday] he didn’t.”
Castro finished his final season 38-7.
“In our hearts we know he should have won that match, but you’re going to win some that you shouldn’t, you’re going to lose some that you shouldn’t. It’s just a bitter pill to swallow,” Leavitt said. “I’m proud of everything he did. He had a great year — he had a great career.”
A third champ from Fort Wayne saw his career end as Peru 160-pounder Derrick Duke suffered his first loss this season after 28 straight victories, falling 7-0 to Culver Academies’ Branden James. James had been a fourth-place finisher in the semistate.
“[James] had one loss going into the semistate and I don’t know if he had a bad day there or what, but he sure looked good [Friday],” Peru coach Andy Hobbs said. “He pushed the pace and sort of led the dance.
“Derrick fought hard, worked at him, but he had us at every corner. [It’s a] hard way for a senior to end his career, but he sure had a good one.”
Maconaquah senior Seth Verbosky lost a heartbreaker at 135 pounds, dropping a 5-4 decision to Mishawaka’s Steven Sandefer. Verbosky trailed by a point early in the third period then scored a takedown to take a 4-3 lead, but Sandefer scored a reversal about 15 seconds later for the match’s final points.
“He had a beautiful takedown there,” Freije said of Verbosky. “I can’t be upset because the kid gave it all. He had no [regrets] on what he did. He wrestled good. Wrestling is give and take and right there they guy caught him. I was very proud of him.”
Verbosky finished his senior year 46-5.
Eastern sophomore Chad Barrett (40-7) was another to lose an agonizing match. The Comet 119-pounder scored a third-period takedown to tie Mishawaka’s Nick Wiesjahn at 3-3. The Comets then opted to allow Wiesjahn to escape with 1:15 left but Wiesjahn subsequently landed a takedown to win 6-3.
“We came back and tied it up and had a decision to cut [Wiesjahn] off bottom. It was the right decision,” Eastern coach Craig Standish said. “He had a takedown there at the end and was able to control us up top and rode us out the rest of the period. We did exactly what we wanted to do — kept it close the first period, kept it close the second period and were right where we thought we’d be. We thought it’d be a tight match, just didn’t come out on top.
“You can’t fault his effort — left it all on the mat, which is what you need to do at this level. He’ll be a little bit upset, and he’ll come back and I think he’ll use that as a point of focus for offseason wrestling and next year.”
Peru lost its entire three-wrestler contingent as 112-pound junior Zachary Leffel (43-9) lost 6-1 to Warsaw’s Justin Brooks, and 152-pound junior Elliot Corner (33-15) lost 15-3 to Northview’s Chris Dean.
“With Elliot and Zach, I’m just real proud of how much they’ve improved the last 12 months,” Hobbs said. “Going from getting knocked off in the sectional last year to the state finals this year — it’s pretty good to be in the final 16 of your weight class. I’m proud of them. They really worked their way up there.”
Tipton 130-pounder Levi Rutledge ended his sophomore season at 44-3 after losing 10-5 to Chesterton’s Andy St. Germain.
Clinton Central 112-pound junior Tye Bowman ended his season at 40-3 after suffering a first-period pin to Brown County’s Mitchell Richey.
Hamilton Heights senior Wes Bullock (44-5) came up on the short end of a thriller at 160 pounds, falling 7-6 to Evansville Memorial’s Tanner Wedding at 160 pounds.
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