Brady Porter needed a pin.
Trailing by six team points entering the final bout of Tuesday’s dual meet against Bradford, only a fall could steal a Johnsonburg victory. After all, the Rams had won all six wrestled matches prior, but had also given up six forfeits.
Porter’s 2nd-period pin not only brought the Rams even with Bradford on the team scoreboard, but gave them the tiebreaker they needed to claim what was a 36-36 final. Having won seven matches to Bradford’s six, Jburg returned home with an improbable victory, one that spoiled Bradford’s Senior Night.
“We came up with only seven guys in our lineup and it takes a lot of bonus points to overcome that,” Jburg head coach Mike Votano said. “We knew we would have two very competitive matches at 145 and 160, and winning both of those really helped us out. It was a nice win for a small team.”
Equally important for Jburg were two victories in premier matchups at 145 and 160 pounds. A decision in each of those, plus five falls, were sufficient.
Long before Porter’s meet-sealing fall, Gino Casilio bumped up to 121 pounds and started the evening with a pin for Jburg. The Rams forfeited the next three classes before Avery Bittler pulled off an overtime victory over Jordan Thompson at 145.
Thompson scored first, battling to finish a double-leg attempt for a 1st-period takedown. The Bradford freshman scored again with a reversal in the second to go up 4-1 after conceding an escape.
Bittler started the third on bottom, however, and escaped before he was awarded a takedown at the end of a last-second scramble to force overtime. Bittler executed a swift takedown in the one-minute, sudden death period.
Kaden Dennis was quick with a fall at 152 pounds, setting up a rematch of Bradford’s Lucas Laktash and Jburg’s Aiden Zimmerman at 160. The pair had met just three days prior at the Ultimate Warrior tournament, where Zimmerman took a 3-1 victory in sudden-death overtime.
Tuesday’s installment was much of the same; the wrestlers’ familiarity with each other was evident. Laktash tried to set the pace but didn’t find much to attack, and after trading escapes, it appeared as though overtime might be required again. Zimmerman finished a defensive takedown with 15 seconds left in regulation, however, to win Tuesday’s match by the same score as their prior meeting.
“I thought (Thompson and Laktash) did a better job tonight than this weekend, but if you make one or two mistakes, that can lose a match,” Chaussard said. “But I’m proud of their effort and they really did wrestle well.”
With five matches to go, Zimmerman’s victory tied the dual at 18.
“Those are coin-flip matches and (Zimmerman and Laktash’s) match looked almost identical to the other day,” Votano said. “(Zimmerman) won on a go-behind at the end. I thought four of those kids wrestled well but, at the end of the day, we pulled it out.”
Rayce Milliard wrapped up his opponent quickly at 172 pounds before Jburg forfeited three more classes. That left just two matches to overcome a 36-24 deficit, but Porter and 107-pounder Gage Singer each proved worthy.
“I think we’re getting better and moving in the right direction,” Votano said. “There is still a lot of work to do but we’ve had a lot of hard competition this year, so we see our weaknesses, as well. But we’re nowhere near where we need to be, especially with some of the kids we have high expectations for, and we need to keep working hard at practice.”
Jburg will wrestle just twice more before the District 9 postseason, but will see two of the area’s best teams when it hosts Brookville Thursday and St. Marys Feb. 7. Bradford will host a tri-meet Friday, welcoming Punxsutawney and Warren.
“I thought we wrestled well in those close matches, we just need to finish them,” Chaussard said. “It’s like we’ve talked about all year — we’re focusing on effort, not results.”
Bradford recognized its nine seniors before the meet — Laktash, Chase Gray, Nate Girdlestone, Shawn Farr, Andrew Krainz, Quinn Lasher, Jacob Lucco, Cascius Rissmiller and Dawson Smith.
“We need to find the happy medium of wrestling out of position and hurrying stuff as opposed to hustling and scoring points. When you hurry, you’re sloppy and out of position. When you hustle, you’re in position. As we get closer to the postseason and wrestle kids of that caliber, you’re going to have to win matches 2-1 and 1-0. It’s usually the guy who makes the fewest mistakes that wins, so we need to limit our mistakes.”
JOHNSONBURG 37, BRADFORD 36
