Upon winning a Division I state wrestling tournament on Saturday night, Joe Joe Terry of
Pickerington Central stepped off the elevated stage that holds the mats and dropped onto his back
on the floor for a few minutes of rest.
Five minutes later, he was almost still too charged up to discuss his 7-5 victory over Trevor
Lawson of Olentangy Liberty in the 170-pound final in Value City Arena.
“Shocked. Relieved. Shocked,” Terry said when asked to describe his emotions. “Mostly, I feel
accomplished.”
Terry, a senior making his first state-tournament appearance, had reason to feel triumphant.
His win over Lawson came one week after losing to the sophomore in a district final. Terry had
edged Lawson the week before in a sectional, which had followed an early-season win by Lawson in a
tournament.
“Winning in the sectional, that was a huge confidence-booster,” said Terry, who before this
year had never had finished above fifth place in the district in his high school career.
He said he wrestled “a little scared” against Lawson in last week’s district but had no such
issues on Saturday.
“You’ve got to have faith,” Terry said. “I expected to be here (in the final), but I also
wanted to surprise myself.”
Valuable points
With 95 points, Olentangy Liberty finished a school-best third place in the Division I team
race, 57 points behind Lakewood St. Edward, which eased to its 30th big-school title. Elyria
finished second with 105 points.
Besides champion Kyle Lawson at 160 pounds and his runner-up brother Trevor Lawson at 170,
Liberty had two wrestlers place third, juniors Brakan Mead at 106 pounds and Trey Grenier at 145.
Another Patriots wrestler, freshman Connor Brady at 132, finished fourth.
Grenier earned his third-place finish with a 5-3 win over Brock Jones of Perrysburg. It was
an especially gratifying victory for Grenier, considering Jones had sent him into the consolation
bracket in the first match on Thursday, winning 5-4. On Saturday, Grenier trailed 2-0 after two
periods before and escape and a takedown propelled his comeback.
“I was getting a little frustrated” early in the third-place match, Grenier said. “But I
stuck with it and did what I needed to do.”
Mead had less trouble in his consolation final, an 8-0 win over Gio DiSabato of Hilliard
Davidson. Mead had lost in the Division I final a year ago, then dropped a 6-4, sudden-victory
decision to Gabriel Tagg of Brecksville in a semifinal on Friday.
“I wanted a title – that it was I came here for,” Mead said. “It was 355 days ago that I lost
in the state final, and to lose last year was devastating. I knew after losing (Friday) that I had
to rebound. I didn’t deliver a championship but I came back strong.”
Drawing board
Two Central District juniors ran into buzzsaws in their championship matches but promised to
carry the lessons they learned into the summer offseason.
In Division II at 138 pounds, Jake Martinez of Licking Valley had won his first three
state-tournament matches without allowing a point, but he was manhandled 12-1 by Brent Moore of St.
Paris Graham.
“I was nowhere near as strong as he was,” Martinez said. “I just wasn’t mentally prepared for
it.”
Martinez’s troubles started early. “He caught me off-guard. He hit me with a move I’ve never
seen before. Never.” He said. “It just shows me how far I need to go.”
A while later at Division III 160 pounds, Josh Doherty of West Jefferson had a similar
experience in losing 15-0 to Kaleb Romero of Mechanicsburg. A three-time state champion, Romero
defeated Doherty by technical fall, the match stopped just past the midway point of the second
period.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” said Doherty, who finished the season with a 54-2 record. “
He’s just better – plain and simple. I’m going to come back with a vengeance and win a state
title."
Different perspectives
When the state wrestling tournament commenced on Thursday, 672 competitors in 14 weight classes
and three divisions had designs on winning a championship.
By the time it all ended on Saturday, only 42 of them were crowned champions, leaving more
than 90 percent of them to seek consolation in one form or another. How they managed that task
sometimes depended on where they stood in their high school careers.
A third-place finish, for instance, might seem to be an accomplishment worth celebrating –
and it was, for the younger wrestlers who pulled off the feat Saturday afternoon.
“It feels amazing to get third, actually,” Hilliard Darby sophomore Jared Ball said after
beating Dylan Roth of Cincinnati Oak Hills in a Division I third-place match at 160 pounds. “I went
out and left everything on the mat, and it paid off.”
Ball rallied from a second-round loss to win his final three matches, becoming the first
Darby wrestler to place in the top four since 2007.
Such satisfaction was a little more difficult to locate for Greg Brusco, a 152-pound senior
from Delaware. Brusco was making his fourth state-tournament appearance, having placed fourth as a
freshman at 113 pounds and as a junior at 138.
So his third-place finish after a 7-3 win over Jack Conway of Lakewood St. Edward marked a
career best, but it didn’t taste quite so sweet knowing that his high school career was over.
“Satisfied? No,” Brusco said. “This wasn’t the way I wanted it to end. I wanted a state
title. But I am proud of the way I wrestled today.”
Brusco became the highest-placing Delaware wrestler since 1973.
Another four-timer
Before 1979, no wrestler had ever won four state titles in a career.
That year, Mark Zimmer of DeSales became the first. In the 37 years since then, 27 other
wrestlers have joined the four-timers club, the latest being Alex Marinelli of St. Paris Graham.
Marinelli defeated Aidan Pasiuk of Carrollton to win the Division II title at 170 pounds.
A while later, Marinelli received his medal from Graham coach Jeff Jordan, who in 1983 became
the third member of the club. Jordan’s brother Jim was the second, the year before.
Besides those two Jordans, six other wrestlers won all or some of their titles for Graham,
which won its 16th straight team title. Marinelli finished his career with a 200-4 record.
rstein@dispatch.com