Golden Bears Battle Ohio Valley Tooth and Nail

February 15, 2012

From WVU Tech Wrestling

Short-handed due to injuries and illness, the WVU Tech wrestling squad wrestled five difficult bouts against the visiting Fighting Scots of Ohio Valley University. Despite being short-handed, the Golden Bears were able to win four of the five bouts contested.

OVU was without a 125 lb. wrestler, so Danny Suite (Wallback, WV) bumped up to 133 lbs. for the opportunity to wrestle in front of the home crowd. Using a strong leg attack, some outstanding scrambling, and give-no-quarter style of wrestling, Suite was able to ring up a 15-6 major decision over Josue Rodriguez. At 141, the third time proved to be the charm for Alaskan Conrad Lacey (Anchorage, AK), who defeated Kyle Honeycutt after falling to him two previous times this year. Conrad wrestled tough in all three positions, building up a sizeable amount of riding time, and cruised to a 9-0 major decision victory.

John Walter (Camden, DE) continued displaying the tenacity and strong riding skills that have become his trademark. After falling behind 2-0 early, “J-Dub” scored a reversal and used a punishing leg ride to turn his opponent to take a lead he would not surrender on this night, winning a 5-3 decision. In one of the night's most entertaining matches, Chance Smith (Stokesdale, NC) moved up to 157 to wrestle Nico Niday, the larger brother of Dane Niday, who Chance defeated earlier in the year. After surrendering an early takedown, Chance scored a reversal, and from there it was off to the races. Chance was able to push the pace and Niday was forced to take three injury time-outs, resulting in a win by injury default for Smith. At 184, newcomer Alhassan Yasin (Pittsburgh, PA) was in a tussle with Seth Jack from OVU, and ended up on the wrong end of a throw directly to his back.

Coach Gardner had this to say about his team's performance “I was pleased with the effort the guys showed out there. Knowing that, mathematically it is hard for your team to win when you give up forfeits like we have to, can be either a positive or a negative thing for your team, depending on how you frame it. Our guys looked at it as a positive, that there was no pressure on them, and they could go out and compete like they are fully capable of doing. I was impressed by Danny's willingness to challenge himself by going up a weight. I was really fired up by Conrad's shut-out. That guy had beaten him twice before, and for some guys that might become a mental block. Conrad had the right frame of mind and wrestled his best match of the year. J Dub [John Walters] wrestled a typical low scoring bout, but he showed some improvements in how he approaches managing the ebb and flow of the bout, and I feel good about that. Chance doesn't look like a tough guy, but he moved up a weight and wrestled with a nasty back spasm. He showed great heart to match his very unique and exciting style of wrestling. Al is new to the sport, so we are working with him, and we judge his performance on the improvements he shows, and even in defeat tonight, Al showed that he is progressing as well.”


Return to the WV-Mat front page