Bellefontaine’s wrestling team was edged by visiting North Union 35-30 on Tuesday in a dual meet that also featured the youth and middle school programs competing in front of the home crowd.
“Any time you can have a close dual like that it makes for an exciting night,” said BHS head coach Brady Hiatt. “Obviously, we would have liked to come out on the winning end of that, but we wrestled tough and saw some improvement in certain areas.
“It was also great to see our younger wrestlers compete and have all aspects our program in action together. This was a good opportunity for those little guys to see their high school heroes wrestle and vice versa.”
In the high school portion, North Union won the first three matches to take a 17-0 lead.
Bellefontaine came back to win five of the next six matches and build a 27-23 lead. However, the Wildcats were able to take two of the final three matches to hold on for the 35-30 victory.
For the Chieftains, Zayne Reed (170) and Garrett Gross (195) both recorded wins by pin, Blayden Hurley (145) won 6-3 and Makayla Young (106) rallied to win 15-8 in the final match of the night. Tucker Newland (138) and Noah Yoesting (152) both added wins by forfeit.
“Makayla wrestled well and fought back to get the win in a great match,” said Hiatt. “Zayne looked good and it was good to see Garrett back on the wrestling mat where he belongs.”