WADSWORTH WRESTLING LEAVES IT ALL ON THE MAT AT STATES:

BY BRENDEN BARLETT & CARSON BERNARD

Four seconds. In front of a live audience of 17,000 people, only four seconds remained on the clock when Wadsworth High School’s Jaxon Joy (11) and St. Edward’s Kade Brown (11) stalemated and returned to the center of the mat. Joy led 5-0. Once both wrestlers were set, Joy on top, Brown on bottom, the whistle blew. Brown shot to his feet, looking for anything while Joy kept close behind, and the final four seconds ticked away. Joy had become a backto-back State Champion.

“I mean, it’s nice,” said Jaxon Joy, a junior and one of the Grizzly’s three team captains after his Finals win, “but my goals are a lot higher than winning the State Tournament.”

Throughout the State Tournament, at the Schottenstein Center down in Columbus, from March 10-12, Joy comfortably climbed to the State Finals, winning his Round of 16 match on Friday evening by tech-fall (15 points or higher) and his quarterfinals match Saturday afternoon by pin. That said, when it came to his Semi-finals match Saturday night, Joy did not achieve the outcome he had hoped for.

“If you go into every practice and tournament going, ‘I gotta win, I gotta win,’ you are just putting too much pressure onto yourself,” Joy said. “You can’t guarantee a win, but you can guarantee you are going to have fun if you have the right mindset.”

Joy avoids worrying about whether or not he will win or lose before his matches. Rather, he focuses on keeping his mind right, getting ready to score as many points as he can, and, most importantly, making sure he has fun. Joy applies this way of thinking to both high-pressure situations such as matches and to training in the room.

“I mean, I have a ton of fun each practice, just doing what I love, and it makes it pretty easy.”

-Jaxon Joy

2X State-Champion, 3X State Finalist, TeamCaptain, and ranked 16 nationally at 132lb.

Joy said, “If you do what you love, you are going to have fun doing it, and I love wrestling. There’s nothing I’d rather do. I’m borderline obsessed with it. I mean, I have other things I look forward to, but at the end of the day, I just want to wrestle.”

“I set a goal to get bonus points in all my matches, but, I mean, there are great kids here,” Joy said. “I was dominant, and I didn’t give up an offensive point, but I just wanted to get bonus points.”

Joy’s determination to get bonus points in each of his matches is just one aspect of what makes him so successful and dominant on the mat and why over the course of the season, he was able to amass a total of 327 takedowns, which would place him at number 8 in the state on OHSAA’s unofficial takedown record for a single season. Another aspect to his success is his mindset.

Overall, Joy is excited about being a twotime State Champion, but he is also already looking ahead, eager to do more in the room at practice, perfecting his technique and in crucial tournaments this summer and next

“I want to become unbeatable,” Joy said. “Win IronMan; Win Powerade.

Those are my two big goals for next year. They were my goals this year, but I’m going to work even harder to achieve them.”

Finishing the season 51-4, moving forward, Joy’s goal is to become more dominant, win more, lose less, and have a good summer. While Joy still has another year left with the Grizzlies, he is committed to Cornell University.

Although Joy certainly dominated at the 87 Annual State Wrestling Tournament, all ten of the Grizzly’s state qualifiers performed well. Each wrestler won at least one match, and the combined effort of all the Grizzly’s wrestlers contributed to the team’s 5-place finish in Division I with 95.0 points. The Grizzlies placed ninth overall among Divisions I, II, III, and the new Girl’s Division.

Leading up to Aaron Ries, another of the Grizzly’s juniors, 285lb semi-finals match, Ries prevailed through the Round of 16 with a 3-1 victory in the first period of overtime, which is a sudden death, winner takes all situation. A match later, in the quarterfinals, Ries returned to overtime against Miamisburg’s Abel Ngoh (11). Ries and Ngoh were tied 1-1 heading into the two thirty-second “tiebreaker” periods. Ngoh scored first in their match, giving him a criteria advantage, but Ngoh had also been called for stalling. If he were called for stalling again, Ries would earn a point.

That said, if Ries did not do something big over the course of the two thirty-second tiebreaker periods, it was very likely that things would end in favor of Ngoh, as in “Ultimate Rideout,” the final round of overtime, Ngoh would choose bottom.

And so, Ries was on top in the first thirty seconds, in which Ngoh escaped, making the match 2-1.

Shortly after, Ries got his escape, too, making the score 2-2. Ries needed to go. Twenty seconds remained before “Ultimate Rideout.” He needed to move. So Ries charged. Placing constant pressure on Ngoh, Ries forced out another stalling call. With the score 3-2, it was over. Ries had won.

But Ries was not content with his first two wins of the State Tournament–something he made clear after beating Barberton’s Roosevelt Andrews (12) 6-4 in the Semifinals match.

“I just wasn’t happy with the last two wins I had,” Ries said. “So I was like, ‘I gotta score in the first period.’ I haven’t been scoring in the first period since the first round of Districts, and that’s just not good enough.”

Ries not only scored in the first period against Roosevelt but controlled the entire match. This was huge, especially after coming into the State Tournament after a bitter overtime loss to Roosevelt in the North-Canton Hoover District Finals match. Since then, Ries adjusted accordingly, and it paid off.

“I didn’t want to let him get on a shot,” Ries said. “Last week, I dominated the match, but he got a good shot during overtime. I just didn’t let that happen this time.”

After Ries’s huge semi-final win on Saturday, he faced off against MassillonPerry’s Aidan Fockler (11) in their fifth match against one another. Going into the Heavy Weight State Finals match, they were tied 2-2.

After over eight minutes of facing each other, Fockler won criteria, chose bottom during “Ultimate Rideout,” and came out ahead 3-2. That said, by the time the match ended, Ries had nothing to be ashamed of. He is only hungrier as he looks ahead to the next season and his senior year, where he will definitely get another shot against Fockler.

“I mean, obviously, I’m pissed off when I lose,” Ries said. “I mean, everyone’s pissed off when they lose. But you just got to refocus real quick. As I said, it’s just wrestling. I’ve lost a lot of matches, I’ve won a lot of matches, it doesn’t matter. It’s just wrestling.”

Chris Earnest, a Senior at Wadsworth High School and a two-time State Finalist and three-time state placer for the Grizzlies, is another Grizzly wrestler who competed at States. Being both a returning State Champion and a team captain alongside Joy and Coen Grimm (12), Earnest’s goals heading into the Tournament were to become a two-time State Champion and to help his teammates grow.

“You know, I kinda just tried to get my team along,” Earnest said. “With it being my senior year, I wanted to get as many people as much experience as they could. I know for Flea (Blake Frantz, 9) and Shien (Kolten Mellon, 9), it was their first coming down; Kyle (9) also came down to watch with our team, and I think they all had a lot of fun.”

Unfortunately, Earnest faced a very narrow 3-1 loss in the final match of his trilogy with Dublin Coffman’s Ethan Birden (11) during the 157lb State Championship. That said, through the wins and losses of the three-day tournament, Earnest carried himself with class and set an example for his younger teammates.

“I mean, it sucks,” Earnest said. “But I’m just thankful to have won a State Championship in the first place. Not everyone can call themselves a State Champion, so I’m blessed.”

Although Earnest’s high school career is finished, he is committed to Campell University, a Division I school, where he will continue his academic and athletic careers. Furthermore, at the end of the day, Earnest is happy with his experience at the State Tournament.

“I think that’s all that States is about,” Earnest said. “Coming down and having a lot of fun with your team and getting after it at the tournament.”

While States Weekend was undoubtedly a success for the Grizzlies, a lot is set to change. Eight of the fourteen wrestlers on Varsity A were seniors, so a lot of shoes are going to need to be filled. That said, Earnest and Joy are confident in their younger teammates.

“It’s almost impossible to explain the amount of work and effort our team puts in because nobody will be able to understand,” Earnest said. “There are kids in our B team that would start at other schools throughout Ohio.” Our team has an insane amount of depth and the amount of work from Middle School all the way up to High School and even Youth—you can just see how hard Wadsworth as a whole works at wrestling.” year, where he will wrestle for the University at Buffalo.

Alongside Earnest, Joy believes their teammates, from those who have been on Varsity A to those who will be next season, have put forth more than enough effort to show they are ready to wrestle.

“I’m really glad to be doing it alongside them all,” Joy said. “They’re great kids, and they work hard just like I do, and they deserve it just like I do, and I hope they take in the atmosphere. They’re going to do great things.

“I’m just excited to get another four years because not everybody does.” scary for sure. Never knowing if you’re going to be able to finish or not; never knowing what’s going to happen, it’s so unpredictable. But I just have to trust in our trainers and our medical staff and prevail.” - Nick Humphrys