COLUMBUS — A couple months ago, Sheridan’s Cash Owen thought his high school wrestling career could be over. He tore a calf muscle, and he was a senior.
Owen overcame it all to finish on the Division II 113-pound state wrestling tournament podium March 15 in Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center by taking fifth place.
He was more than okay with that kind of result.
“I’m very cool with fifth place considering I’m ranked 17th and not having much time to come back and get myself in shape and prepare myself mentally and physically. I’m super stoked to be able to come back and get top six,” he said.
Owen started his tournament with an 11-4 win and a 1-0 tie-breaker victory to get to the semifinals, but an 11-3 loss and a loss by pin send him to the fifth-place match. Once there, Owen (26-5) handled his business, beating Franklin sophomore Blaine Napier (31-1) by a 5-1 decision.
“I had three weeks to prepare for state. I’m not exactly sure how I did it. With an adrenaline rush, I didn’t feel (the injury) until about 20 minutes after the match,” he said. “I just kept showing up to practice and rooting for my teammates and wanting them to do better kept me motivated to want to come back and push myself to want to make it to state. That’s what I did.”
Spry bounces back for third place
Tri-Valley senior Kandice Spry entered with aspirations for a state championship in the girls 115-pound bracket as state-runner-up last year and a third-place finisher in the class as a sophomore.
She won her first two bouts with ease, taking a pin in 1:51 and a technical fall 20-4. In the semifinals, she dropped a 10-2 decision to Little Miami freshman Kaylee Vera (44-3). It turned into a rough night for Spry.
“I eventually fell asleep after a few hours of laying in bed. It was rough at first,” she said.
She took her frustrations onto the mat March 15 where she pinned her opponent in 2:17 to move into the third-place match. Once there, she took care of Lakota East’s Camryn Gresham (18-5) by a 4-0 outcome to finish her season at 52-5. She refused to let the disappointment derail her in her final two matches.
“Honestly, I just feel like I gave everything to the sport, and I owed it to myself to fight back and get third,” she said. “That was the hardest part. My heart was really heavy. I felt like everything I worked for got ripped apart and ripped away from me. Mentally, I had to listen to my coach and really keep my head in the game because I knew I wasn’t done yet.”
She will compete at Northern Michigan next year, but she will miss what she helped to start at Tri-Valey with girls wrestling.
“Starting the program, it was really only me. This year we had a big group of girls, and I feel it helped prepare me for college to know what it felt like to be on a team,” she said. “I was not close with any of those girls going into the season, and now after, some of them became my best friends. It was definitely amazing for that to grow.”
State champ stayed focused
Before he won his state championship at 132 pounds in Division II, Sheridan sophomore Maddox Laymon was managing his time over the weekend.
In normal wrestling invitationals, it’s go-go-go with up to five matches wrestled in a day. Yet to win a state championship, there are large gaps between matches. Laymon won his opener 16-1 in the afternoon of March 13 and then was off until March 14 for the quarterfinals early and the semifinals later in the evening. The state championship was in the evening of March 15.
“It’s more beneficial for me because it gives me more time to cool off and think about my performance I want to put on,” he said of all the down time.
As for the hoopla, noise and lights that make the state tourney so different from any other high school match, he was prepared for that, too.
“To be honest, I don’t really think about it. I go out there and wrestle with tunnel vision and stay focused. It has a lot to do with how long I’ve been in the sport,” he said. “I’ve wrestled pretty much my whole life. It’s all I’ve really known. Being in high school is the next step. I just stay in my normal head space and have fun and enjoy it.”
More Zanesville-area placers
New Lexington had three wrestlers place in Division II. Harrison Ratliff was fourth at 150, Tyson Spicer fifth at 144 and Brody McNabb sixth at 106. Tri-Valley’s Logan McClellan was sixth at 285 in D-II, while finishing eighth in D-II were John Glenn’s Dominic Bates at 175 and Zaneville’s Trio Ladd at 215.
Maysville’s Carter Abella was on the edge all weekend at 126 pounds in Division II. He won his opener 8-3, then lost his next match 4-1. From there he posted back-to-back wins by 9-8 and 12-11. An 11-3 victory put him in the third-place match, but Columbus DeSales topped him in a pin. He finished fourth with a 49-5 record.
Also for Maysville, Presley Sandobel (42-6) capped her freshman season by finishing fourth in the girls 110-pound class. In the semifinals, she took eventual state champ Ashlynn Brokaw of Mount Vernon to the ultimate tir-breaker before dropping it 4-3. She earned an ultimate tie-break win to get to the semis. Maysville sophomore Audrey Crooks (50-7) was seventh at girls 120.
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This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: OHSAA state wrestling notebook | Cash Owen comes back for a podium
Reporting by Rob McCurdy, USA Today Sports Network / Zanesville Times Recorder
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
