Wrestling: A different Cobos Classic for area competitors

AVON LAKE — The Cobos Classic may have had a different feel this time around, but many area wrestles still used the platform as a chance to show off their skills. Six area wrestlers brought home championships Saturday — three from Avon, two from Wellington and one from host Avon Lake — while Medina (215.5 points) held off Brunswick (198) and Bay (183.5) to bring home the team championship. St. Edward's green team and Amherst were scheduled to compete, but both pulled out because of COVID-19 related precautions. Many of the weight classes were contested as a round-robin format, though the 138, 145, 152, 220 and 285-pound classes each had enough wrestlers to split into two pools and hold placement matches. The Eagles finished fourth with 171.5 points thanks to their three titles. Liam Foye brought home the 120 championship thanks to a 4-0 record, Joe Roesch won all three of his bouts to win the four-man pool at 182 and Mason Bingham piled up four pins and a decision at 285. Avon sent four others to the podium — John Foye took second at 106 while Luke Kaminski (145), Angel Bauzo (170) and Josh Sublett (195) finished third in their respective weight classes. "It was a pretty good day," Roesch said. "Overall I think I did pretty good. It's been tough, but we get it done practicing every day in the room. We've got a lot of young guys, so we're trying to push through everything and figure ourselves out a bit." Jeremiah McKee had a quick day at 132, recording four pins — his last two occurring in less than 20 seconds — en-route to a championship. Derrick Andolsek also went 4-0, going for the cycle in decisions with a pin, a technical fall, a major decision and a decision. Cayden Conrad was the only other Dukes wrestler to place, taking fourth at 160. "I think it was a pretty good tournament overall," McKee said. "I saw a lot of good wrestlers here and I got them down quick. It's been hard because COVID has taken a couple of our guys out at practice so getting practice in against guys my side has been harder. And then Amherst and St. Eds aren't here because of it, too, and those would have been some really great matches to get in." Avon Lake's lone champion came at 113 as Nathan Perry went 4-0 in his group with three pins and a technical fall. His weight class only had three competitors thanks to the schedule changes. The Shoremen had five runnerups — Michael Valerino (120), Joe Marconi (138), Jack Shepard (145), Lucas Marconi (160), Andrew Sullivan (170) — while Jacob Dzik took third at 106 and Jack Marconi and Felipe Covarubbias took fourth at 152 and 220, respectively. "It was definitely not how I thought it would be with a three-man bracket," Perry said. "You just take what you can get and nothing is really for sure or concrete this year. You've just got to go with the flow." Contact Chris Sweeney at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeneyCT on Twitter.