Baldridge, Visconti both reach podium

By ROB HAMILTON

The 2013 Divi­sion III state wrestling meet was a pretty nice way to spend three days for fans of the North­mor wrestling program.

Not only did senior Tyler Beck earn a state cham­pi­onship at 195 pounds, but qual­i­fy­ing team­mates Jamie Baldridge and Colin Vis­conti also earned places on the podium.

Junior Baldridge fin­ished fifth at 145 pounds, while senior Vis­conti took eighth at 152. Both wrestlers had com­peted at the state meet pre­vi­ously (Vis­conti last year, Baldridge in 2011), but had gone 0–2 in those appearances.

Baldridge reversed that record in his first two matches, as he claimed a pair of wins to advance to the semi­fi­nals. He opened with a 4–2 win over Adam Guerra of San­dusky St. Mary Cen­tral Catholic.

In the defen­sive match, the dif­fer­ence was Baldridge’s abil­ity to score a pair of take­downs on shots.

“That’s some­thing I’ve used since mid­dle school where I stand up, fake one way and switch to the other,” he said. “I think I’m a pretty good rider on top, so I was able to keep him down for the most part.”

Baldridge noted that not mak­ing the state meet in 2012 was a huge moti­va­tional tool for him this year.

“Since then, I’ve been lift­ing year-round and putting in extra work,” he said. “I put in a full sum­mer of just work­ing and lift­ing and get­ting in bet­ter shape.”

He then topped Reid Stan­ley of Apple Creek Waynedale 5–4 in his first match on Fri­day. A take­down, escape and two back points gave him a 5–1 lead early in the third period, before an escape and a pair of late stalling calls tight­ened up the score.

“It was real close going into the third, so being able to get that turn helped to seal the match in my favor,” he said.

While his match with Jacob Dan­ishek of Day­ton Chris­t­ian, a junior who won his third state cham­pi­onship with ease on Fri­day, didn’t go well for Baldridge, who lost by 23–8 tech­ni­cal fall, he was still assured of plac­ing between third and sixth on Saturday.

Stand­ing in his way were a pair of rematches with oppo­nents who had defeated him in this year’s postseason.

In his first match of Sat­ur­day, John­stown Northridge’s Thomas Williams claimed a sec­ond win over him, this time by a 4–1 mar­gin. How­ever, Baldridge was able to even the score with Shadyside’s Ian Baker in the fifth-place match.

Baldridge took a 6–2 lead after two peri­ods of action, but much like against Stan­ley in the sec­ond round, had to hold on for the win.

Baker got within a 7–6 mar­gin and nearly was able to get back points to steal a win, but Baldridge was able to hold on to claim fifth place.

“I gave up a take­down that I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I got lazy and flat-footed. It’s been a long three days and the body gets worn down. This morn­ing, I was real sore and slug­gish and I had to get going.”

With senior Beck and Vis­conti grad­u­at­ing, Baldridge will be looked upon for lead­er­ship next year — a respon­si­bil­ity that both he and his coach are hop­ing he is ready to inherit.

“We have quite a few fresh­men and sopho­mores in our line-up,” said Carr. “I think he’s got some grow­ing up to do and he knows it.”

“I guess so,” said Baldridge. “It takes a lot to be a leader, so I hope I can help my team become better.”

Not only was Visconti’s eighth-place fin­ish an improve­ment over last year’s two-and-out per­for­mance, but also, in the words of his coach, a tes­ta­ment to his will.

In early Jan­u­ary, the senior had surgery to repair a torn menis­cus and had to work hard just to make it back before the begin­ning of the post­sea­son. After los­ing his match against John­stown North­ridge in the state duals (while wrestling up a weight class and com­pet­ing against state qual­i­fier Rob Mickey), he fin­ished sec­ond in the Mid-Ohio Ath­letic Con­fer­ence before win­ning at sec­tion­als and plac­ing third at districts.

“When you put a senior on the shelf for four weeks in the mid­dle of the sea­son and he comes back to do this, it’s sheer will and deter­mi­na­tion,” said Carr. “It’s all heart and it’s amaz­ing to see what the human spirit can do. It’s just a trib­ute to his will and heart and he’ll be missed.”

In the first round, Vis­conti topped Mount Blan­chard Riverdale’s Seth Knoll by a 9–5 mar­gin. The North­mor senior seemed bet­ter on his feet than his oppo­nent, which he used to his advantage.

“I just pushed him until he real­ized he wouldn’t get any­thing and when he broke men­tally, I started to move,” he said. “I’m still not happy — I have some more to go, so I’m not stop­ping here.”

As a wrestler who had com­peted in state before, Vis­conti tried to use that to his advantage.

“From my expe­ri­ence, wrestling in state the first time, I know you’ll be ner­vous and make stu­pid mis­takes, so I tried to take advan­tage of that,” he said.

That win allowed him to meet one of his goals for the weekend.

“I promised myself last year that I’d be back here and I would win a match and I stuck to it,” he said. “I promised I’d do bet­ter, what­ever that is, and I came here to find out.”

Vis­conti lost by a techi­cal fall to even­tual runner-up Kollin Moore of Cre­ston Nor­wayne in the quar­ter­fi­nals, but got a famil­iar oppo­nent in his first con­so­la­tion match in Amanda-Clearcreek’s Caleb Horn.

The Knight wrestler had topped Horn by one point in the third-place match at dis­tricts and won again on Fri­day by that same mar­gin with a 5–4 score. It took a late take­down for him to take the lead, though, as he trailed 4–3 in the third period after sur­ren­der­ing an escape.

By vir­tual of win­ning that match, Vis­conti assured him­self of a spot on the podium, a moment that wasn’t lost on the emo­tional senior afterwards.

“I just blacked out and thought this was it,” he said. “What hap­pens, happens. I didn’t even know what to do when I won. It’s a relief — now I can actu­ally have fun with it.”

Vis­conti would lose his last two matches to fin­ish eighth, as South Central’s Caleb Bar­nett topped him by tech­ni­cal fall and Seth King of Gates Mills Hawkens scored a late take­down to clinch a 5–3 win in the bat­tle for sev­enth place.

Carr fin­ished the state meet extremely pleased with the efforts of all three wrestlers.

“It’s just a trib­ute to all their hard work,” he said. “They were deter­mined to get on the podium, all three of them. It’s amaz­ing how far you can get on sheer will.”

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Mar 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.