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Kevin Christensen |
Garrett Lay |
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| GREENON ADVANCES TWO WRESTLERS TO THE STATE MEET......... |
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Kevin Christensen |
Garrett Lay |
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CHRISTENSEN AND LAY ADVANCE TO STATE WRESTLING TOURNAMENT
When Greenon Senior Kevin Christensen was a freshman, he quickly discovered that the road to the State Wrestling Tournament usually went through Graham High School. These days that path is a well traveled road for Christensen as he defeated Graham's Joe Newland by a score of 5-3 in the championship match of the Goshen Division II District Tournament. The win enables him to compete in next week's state wrestling tournament as the # 1 seed from his district, and it was also the second consecutive week that Christensen has beaten Newland in the championship match (Christensen defeated him in the finals of the West Milton Sectional tournament the previous week.) Christensen qualified for the state tournament for a school record fourth visit and it's the second year in a row he was the District Champion. Coach Justin Vondenburg commented "I'm happy for Kevin for being a district champ".
Also qualifiying for the State tournament this year was sophomore Garrett Lay. Lay shook off a first round loss and battled back through the consolation bracket to garner a hard earned berth in the State tournament next weekend as he battled back to take a fourth place finish. The top 4 placers qualify for the state tournament.
As a team, Greenon ended up in 14th place out of 43 teams. The road to the finals turned out to be a challenging path for for Christensen. Although he went undefeated for the weekend and won his first two matches by pin, he had a tough semi-final matchup against returning state runner up Stephen Morrison from Miami Trace. Morrison came into the match with a 36-1 record and most experts believed he would get the better of Christensen. The "Brakeman Report" has projected Morrison to finish higher then Christensen at the State meet. It was a much anticipated match but it soon became clear that Christensen was the superior wrestler as he nearly pinned his vaunted opponent in the first period and dominated Morrison the entire match on his way to an easy 15-4 win. After the match Coach Vondenberg had this to say "Not a lot of people gave him (Christensen) the credit he deserved against Morrison, but he came out and showed why he was the best".
Sophomore Garrett Lay, who almost qualified for the State tournament last year as a Freshman, discovered that you don't have to win every match to qualify for the state tournament, you just have to win the one's that count. After losing his first match 11-8 to # 1 Seed Chris Trimbach (33-9) from Roger Bacon High School, Lay knew that he had to win his next four matches to qualify for the State tournament. It wasn't the preferred path, but after Lay easily won his first match by pin, he then displayed a knack for scoring needed points late in the match as he rattled off three more wins by scores of 5-4, 4-2, and 9-5 to qualify for the state tournament. "Coach Everhart always says "Refuse to Lose" so that's what I was doing. I knew it was now or never". The "refuse to lose" attitude prevailed in his wins against Zac Marinelli of Tipp City and Crhis Trimbach of Roger Bacon. In both those matches, Lay was trailing with less than 30 seconds left, and both times he scored late to sqeak out a win. The most satisfying win was the match against Trimbach. Lay had lost to Trimbach in the first round, and in the rematch he trailed 5-4, but in the last 22 seconds of the match he took the lead with a 2 point takedown and then scored 3 more points on a near pin as he triumphed 9-5. The win qualified him for the state tournament and the loss ended his opponents bid for a state berth. Coach Vondenberg commented "It was a big step for Garrett, he grew up a little bit wrestling in this tournament".
Greenon Junior Matt Wolf also wrestled at the tournament and showed some promise for next season as he had one win and two close losses in the tournament. Wolf's two losses were by a score of 4-3 to undefeated Dominique Steele (44-0) of Norwood and 3-2 in two overtimes to Spencer Kerns (41-5) of Urbana. In between the losses Wolf defeated Phil Bokovitz (16-6) of Gallia Academy by a score of 4-1. "Matt Wolf had a great tournament. His inexperience at the District hurt some but he wrestled hard and could have easily had two wins". Wolf finishes the season with a record of 22-20.
Christensen will take a 38-3 record to the State Tournament next week at Columbus Ohio as he hopes to improve on his 4th place finish at the states last season by becoming the first wrestler in school history to claim a state title. Garrett Lay takes a 44-9 record into the tournament.
KNIGHTS NOTES
- Garrett Lay's four wins at the tournament gives him 44 wins for the season. This is believed to be the school record for wins in a season. The previous record was 42 wins by Kevin Christensen (2004 and 2005 seasons).
- 42 is a good number for Christensen. Christensen needs to win four matches to claim a state title. If he suceeds, not only would he be the first wrestler at Greenon to win a state title, but it would also give him 42 wins for the third successive season. Kevin's record the past two season's has been 42-7 (2004) and 42-3 (2005). Christensen's current record is 38-3.
- Brotherly support played an important role at the tournament. Kevin Christensen and Garrett Lay both had brothers supporting them at the tournament. Christensen's older brother Sean, who coaches the Indian Valley Middle School team, was there to support and coach Kevin. Sean was on the sidelines cheering his brother for every match and was in the coach's chair when Christensen beat his Graham opponent. Lay's younger brother Dakota seemed to be a good luck charm for Garrett as he cheered and supported his older brother from the stands.
- Speaking of brothers, both wrestler's have older brothers who excelled for past Greenon wrestling team's. Garrett Lay's older brother Jeremiah was a district qualifier in 2003. Jeremiah just missed qualifying for the State tournament that year as he finished with a 33-11 record. Meanwhile, Kevin Christensen's older brother Sean is a two time state qualifier (2001 and 2002 seasons) whose two year record at Greenon was 56-13.
