Three different Braves nabbed runner-up honors in their respective weight classes while three others earned top-four finishes to lead the Olentangy boys wresting team to a third-place showing at Saturday’s Rieman Invitational in Delaware.
At 113, Olentangy’s Kurt Mokros won back-to-back matches after winning his pool — pinning Riverside’s Steven Rocha in 1:17 before handling Mount Vernon’s Brock Blankenhorn 7-2 — but fell to Massillon Perry’s Liston Seibert 16-1 in the final.
Nick and Jake Piontkowski also secured second-place points for the Braves.
After finishing 2-0 in pool play, Nick Piontkowski beat Elder’s Joey Thamann and Dublin Scioto’s Adrian Pigg by respective scores of 4-2 and 7-3 before falling to Perry’s Nate Dulcie in the final.
At 138, Jake Piontkowski followed a similar path.
After closing 2-0 in pool play, he pinned Mount Vernon’s Dalton Curtis in 30 seconds before edging Firelands’ Kevin Williams 9-6 to punch a ticket to the final, where he fell 14-2 to Perry’s Charles Curtis.
Preston Schuler, meanwhile, finished third after needing just 54 seconds to force Perry’s Brandon Veno to the mat at 120, Luke Mokros finished third at 106 and Daniel Stephens closed fourth in the heavyweight division thanks to a 3-2 showing in his five matches.
Perry ran away with the team title, closing with 393.5 points. Coffman and Olentangy smoothed out he top three with respective scores of 263 and 165. Host Hayes finished seventh with 82 points while Olentangy Berlin closed eighth with 74.5.
The Bears’ best finish belonged to Liam Doneyhue, who knocked off Hayes’ Peyton Bailey 16-1 to finish third at 175.
Other Berlin standouts included Maddux Nauman, who finished fifth at 113 thanks to a 17-1 win over Blankenhorn in the fifth-place match; and Chase Cone, who also won his final match of the day, pinning Central Crossing’s Dane Riddle in 3:48 to win the fifth-place match at 157.
Hayes’ placers, in addition to Bailey (fourth at 175), included Jake Zahniser (eighth at 113), William Cox (seventh at 120), Deacon Dutton (fourth at 126), Ryan Davenport (fourth at 132), Alex Pitzen (sixth at 144) and Caleb Forney (fourth at 165).
