It was a milestone weekend for Bellefontaine’s Garrett Gross at the Division II district tournament in Wilmington.
The senior standout won the 195-pound championship, qualified for the state meet and recorded the 100th win of his career. Gross is just the fourth district champion in program history.
“It means a lot to me,” said Gross. “It proves that hard work pays off. To have accomplished what I did this weekend was great because those were some of my goals for this season.”
Graham won another district title with 242 points and had eight state qualifiers, including six individual champions.
Licking Valley was district runner-up with 85.5 points and London was a close third with 84.5 points. Bellefontaine finished 18th out of 54 teams with 41 points.
The top four placers at each weight class advanced to the Division II state tournament Friday through Sunday in Columbus.
Gross went 4-0 over the course of two days, culminating in a big Saturday night main event. He placed sixth at the district tourney as a sophomore and was a state alternate last season as a junior. Being able to not only qualify for the state meet on his final try, but winning a district title show cased the progress he has made over his career.
“He is still a young wrestler,” said BHS head coach Brady Hiatt. “He wrestled some in youth, but didn’t wrestle again until his freshman year. Outside of one summer camp, he is strictly an in season wrestler. Football is his main thing (Gross has signed to play at Urbana University).
“Garrett has only really wrestled for one calendar year. When you look at it that way, it is a testament to what a good athlete and competitor he is to have that little time on the mat and accomplish so much. To place sixth, fifth and now first is the result of getting more experience with good training partners.”
Gross started his tourney run by recording a 22-second pin in the first round on Friday. He then beat Franklin returning district placer Jared Kremer 6-4 in overtime in the quarterfinals. That secured him a top six finish.
“We had wrestled Kremer before and he tried to slow Garrett down,” said Hiatt. “That kid is a hard matchup for Garrett and a year ago, he probably loses that match. He just wrestled well the entire time and capitalized on positions.”
On Saturday, Gross was beating Monroe’s Sam Oakes 7-0 in the first period of the semifinals when Oakes was forced to injury default. That secured the Chieftain a spot at the state tournament. Gross then dominated Valley View’s Noah Harrison in the finals. Gross was winning 13-2 in the third period win he pinned Harrison in 5:21, which also happened to be the 100th win of his career.
“You don’t want to win on an injury, but that is the real side of sports,” said Hiatt. “He did nothing wrong and the kid just got hurt. In the finals, his opponent was a kid who beat the only kid Garrett has lost to. He was tough, but he went right into Garrett’s wheel house with throws and Garrett capitalized.”
Bellefontaine also saw senior Noah Yoesting cap his career by placing fifth and becoming a state alternate at 145 pounds.
Yoesting won his first-round match by pin on Friday, but lost in the quarterfinals. He then won two straight consolation matches to reach the consolation semifinals, which was his go-to-state match. Yoesting came up short, falling to Ross’ Sean Beltran 6-3. Yoesting bounced back in the finals to beat River Valley’s Logan Miracle 7-6 to become a state alternate.
“Going into the tournament, you couldn’t find anyone who mentioned Noah’s name,” said Hiatt. “He didn’t qualify last year to districts and everybody outside of our room didn’t expect him to do more than win a match. That wasn’t something we believed would happen.
“Noah lost to the second and third-place guys. He made two or three mistakes in his six matches. If you wrestle to the best of your ability with great attitude and great effort you can live with whatever the results are. He did that ever single match. His heart and attitude really showed up in that fifth-place match. How he competed shows his tremendous character, and that is one of the reasons he will be missed next year.” Look for a Division II state preview on Gross in Thursday’s Examiner