DANE FUELLING
WZBD.com
The Adams Central Jets were seeded ahead of Bellmont in eight of 14 weight classes at Wednesday night’s seeding meeting, making the BAGUBAS slight favorites heading into Saturday – despite the fact that the Jets will forfeit 144 and not score a point in that weight.
Of course the seeds and projections mean very little to coach Tony Currie’s team unless they hold and the Jets hoist their first sectional trophy since 2019.
A year ago, the Adams Central team seemed to have locked up a victory until the very last few bouts handed the Bellmont Braves a surprise win and a 46th IHSAA title.
The Jets boast a tournament-high five top seeds, while the Braves have just three #1s. While the Jets do have a forfeit, they do have the other thirteen wrestlers seeded in the top six. Bellmont has two weights where they will enter the bracket without a seed. A wrestler must finish in the top six to score team points.
If Adams Central will raise a trophy Saturday at Jay County, something they’ve only ever done twice in the 23 years since the tournament left Monroe, they will not only need to match their seeds across the board – they’ll probably have to exceed them in a spot or two to keep up with the Braves.
One element that has shown itself to be pretty consequential in tournaments this season has been the tendency for some wrestlers to wrap up a tech fall without scoring the full two extra team points. This was never more evident than last Friday’s ACAC tournament, where the Jets won by .5 points.
Each team should spend much of the early rounds focusing on going for the fall in those early lopsided matchups to give their team a big lead heading into the final round.
Jay County and South Adams will be quick to pounce on either team if they falter or miss a man due to the scales or the bout of illness that has hit nearly every team in the area.
While much focus will be placed on the team race, there are also some major individual accolades on the line. Levi Johns and Gavin Davis will both be looking for their third career sectional titles. They lead a group of five wrestlers who return from last year’s group of winners.
Davis enters his final state tournament with a #7 ranking in the state and just one loss on his record.
Johns is the top seed at 120 for the Bluffton Tigers and has already wrestled in three sectional championship matches, winning two of them.
Jay County has a returning champion in Griffin Byrum. He won last week’s ACAC at 113 and was last year’s sectional champ at 106.
Brason Schortgen will attempt to take the next step towards becoming a four-timer after winning last year’s title for the Jets at 132.
Xavior Palacios, who won his third conference title with his 100th win last week, will try to repeat as champion after winning at 175 last season.
Projections not easy with IHSAA seeding criteria
The lack of common opponents for the Bellmont Braves with other teams in the sectional makes point projections a tricky business. In the end, an accurate projection is difficult because of the weight of bonus pin points. However, for our fans’ purposes, we offer you this rough projection, which would see each of the seeds hold in all 14 weight classes with a conservative amount of bonus points applied to each seed:
1st-Adams Central 210; 2nd-Bellmont 190; 3rd-Jay County 174; 4th-South Adams 166; 5th-Bluffton 112; 6th-Norwell 84; 7th-Union City 66; 8th-Southern Wells 52; 9th-Blackford 10
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