jmetcalfe@delphosherald.com

ELIDA — Elida hosted a four-team super-tri wrestling match Monday night involving St. John’s, Columbus Grove and Lima Central Catholic, along with the host Bulldogs, at the Elida Gymnasium.

All four teams won one match and lost one.

The Blue Jays bested the Grove Bulldogs 39-31 and the Thunderbirds barely edged Elida 34-30 as Jack Huffman defeated senior Nickoli Sackinger 7-5 in overtime in the final match, the 195-pound category.

In the second round, the host Bulldogs got by the Jays 40-33, while Grove knocked off LCC 39-28.

St. John’s head coach Derek Sterling liked a lot of what he saw.

“We’ll see Grove a couple more times down the road and in the tournament, so any time you can get matches with them is good. We were competitive with both of our matches; not bad when you consider we’re giving away 24-30 points each team match because of voids,” Sterling said. “We’re moving some people in and out: Luke (Wrasman) is in the process of dropping weight to 160. Will (Buettner) beat the Allen County champion at 182, Tyler Smith. That was a big win for him because Smith was 23-1. We lost a couple of times when our guys had beaten their guy earlier but we definitely improved a lot, especially with conditioning. We’re catching up in that area to others.
“Any matches against district-level competition makes you nothing but better.”