Bronco Wrestlers Complete Their Homework

Mark Shealy’s 11-second pin wasn’t because he was in a hurry to get to some home work; in fact, as far as he was concerned he was already working on some from Barrington’s wrestling coach Ken Hoving.

“We get stuff to work on (in practice) and then try to go out there and execute,” Barrington’s 182 pound wrestler said following his first period pin of Emil Navrotil from Hersey.

Shealy, who continues his torrid pace of pins that started at the Moore/Prettyman, capped Barrington’s 61-11 victory over their MSL foes and said he was motivated by his teammates to finish his “homework” early.

“We had a lot of momentum going through the door,” he said following Thursday’s meet.  “I just wanted to keep (that momentum) going.”

Barrington, who forced 7 pins and two technical falls in their 14 matches, won their first six matches of the night and coasted to an early 34-0 lead.  Senior’s Ryan Wilt (195) and Daniel Davidson’s (220) started the trend with the first two matches, and junior Ben Calamari (285) continued with his pin of Ed Beyer.

Adrian Gonzalez followed-up Calamari’s fall with a pin of his own in an unconventional match with Anthony O’Brien.  With a score that resembled a football game more than a wrestling match, Gonzalez executed a catch and release policy on O’Brien that saw a multitude of takedowns and then the Hersey wrestler escaping.  The barrage of takedowns saw Gonzalez quickly in the 20- point range before he finished the match via the pin.

“I was looking to work on conditioning,” Gonzalez said of what he felt might be the determiner of a match down the road during the state playoff run.  “I wanted to keep the pace up and blow out my lungs, so if it is a close match I won’t have to worry about (getting tired).”

With the wealth of talent up and down the line-up, Gonzalez isn’t the only Bronco to have seen past success at the state level, as senior Jared Parvinmehr continues his push to return to the state’s toughest meet.  Parvinmehr made one step closer to the meet with a convincing technical fall win over Dan Gramer just as the period ended.

After the 120 pound bye, Hersey was able to get on the scoreboard when Stephfon Scales managed a 4-2 decision over Barrington’s Kevin Conrad (126) and it appeared as if the Huskies were gaining some steam when Conrad Bugay followed that match with a technical fall over Travis Cysewski (132) that cut Barrington’s lead to 34-8.

That was as close as Hersey would get as Barrington’s Joe Thorne (138), Coord Wiseman (145) and Nick Sheely (152) would have consecutive pins that pushed Barrington to a 52-8 advantage before the Huskies managed another point. 

At 160 pounds, Barrington’s Mike Lurz lost a battle that went the distance against Hunter Rollins.  In one of just three matches that took the entire time, Lurz lost a tough 9-4 decision.

Barrington’s Cameron Thomson (170) was another match that took the entire time, but Thomson didn’t mind.

“I wasn’t exactly looking for that outcome, but (Keith Pedersen) wrestled me tough,” the third ranked wrestler in the state said of his match.  “I felt he knew my style but I still scored off of what I could, and even forced three stalling calls.”

Cameron says he isn’t bothered by the number next to his name and really hasn’t felt any additional pressure, actually he strives on it.

“I haven’t really gotten nervous yet, and just feel comfortable out on the mat,” he said.  “I would rather have a big crowd watching me.”

“I kind of like being that fish in the fish bowl,” he went on to say.

Barrington continues with a stretch of MSL duals which is only broken up by the Neuqua Valley Mega-Dual on Saturday, Jan. 14.

“If we (as a team) are going hard from Adrian (Gonzalez) to Ben (Calamari) and everyone is pushing each other, I think success will come to our team,” Thomson said.