MADISON
With this being Brody Shipley’s final year as a member of the Seymour wrestling team, he wanted to make sure he finished strong in the Hoosier Hills Conference tournament.
Shipley achieved that goal as he won his final match in the 220-pound division against a Madison opponent to place third in his division Saturday.
Shipley helped the Owls place seventh in the tournament with 76 points. Columbus East scored 273.5 points to win the tournament for the fifth straight year, and Floyd Central was second with 220 points.
Shipley said he felt like he had a good tournament by going 3-1. That loss came in the first round.
“I got real mad in the first round because I lost (to Columbus East),” Shipley said. “He was a tough kid. It’s easier to get second place than it is to get third, I think, because you wrestle one less match and you’re winning. I could have done better when I was on top.”
Because the Owls were under quarantine Dec. 8 to 22 and had several matches called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shipley said, “I only wrestled four matches before coming here, and I’m not used to (wrestling four times in one day). I need to get a lot better with the stuff we practice. It’s my senior year, so there’s not much I can really improve from this time to sectional time.”
Sam Castetter was Seymour’s next-highest finisher, placing fourth in the 126-pound class. He was 2-2 for the day.
“I felt I wrestled really well except for my first match,” he said. “The first match, I was a little tired, but other than that, I felt like I wrestled some pretty good matches. I got the moves in I wanted. Everything worked out pretty well. I did pretty decent when I moved on the bottom, and they weren’t riding super hard.”
Castetter, who is 11-6 this season, was seeded fifth coming in.
“I was pretty good on my feet. I got most of my takedowns,” he said.
He said he has some things to improve on before sectional.
“I need to work on clearing out legs when I’m on the bottom,” he said. “I’m going to start with that a little bit and work on my cardio.”
Adam Wolka, a former Seymour wrestler in his first season coaching the Owls, was hoping the team might finish higher in the standings.
Seymour filled 10 classes Saturday with one senior, five juniors, three sophomores and one freshman. Overall, the Owls won 15 matches and lost 23, and nine of the 10 competitors won at least one match.
“We definitely could have done better,” Wolka said. “Like we’ve been saying all year, we’re kind of a young squad. It seems like we wrestled in lulls. At times, the guys just didn’t really seem to have their heads on straight, and it definitely cost us. We’re always on them telling them to take things incredibly serious, that the first round is important. If we could go back, we would, but that’s just where we’re at, and we’ll learn from it.”
Owls going 2-2 and placing fifth were Rolando Baltazar at 113 pounds, Castetter, Ben Kriete at 138 and Hector Ruiz-Rosa at 185.
Ed Ramirez at 120, Dunigan Huddleston at 132, Alex Schlatterer at 145 and Collin Hankins at 152 were all 1-3 and finished sixth in their divisions.
“Our big issue is better setups,” Wolka said. “It comes back to the practice room. If you’re not going to take good shots in the practice room and pick it up in the practice room, you’re not going to get them out in meets.
“Also, defensively, on our feet there are some things we need to fix. A lot of things we thought we had under control in the past, we’re making bad errors. “We just came back from that two-week gap from quarantine, and coming out against HHC competition, this is a stiff group. If we’re going to be down, that will definitely hurt us, and that definitely showed today.”
Wolka said after last Thursday’s home meet, the Owls will return to Madison this Saturday for another tournament, then will wrestle at Jennings County on Jan. 21 before preparing for the sectional Jan. 30.
“We harp on them that they are not mentally tough,” Wolka said. “That’s going to be difficult to build. We all recognize as a staff that is our big hindrance right now, and that is something we need to fix before we get in the sectional. When things aren’t going our way, if we give up something early, we seem to kind of fold and collapse. As we get into tournament time, we can’t afford to do that. One bad move can bury you.”
The Owls will host Scottsburg and Brown County on Thursday, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Hoosier Hills Conference tournament
At Madison
Teams: Columbus East 273.5, Floyd Central 220, Jeffersonville 200.5, Madison 171, Jennings County 102, New Albany 98.5, Seymour 76, Bedford North Lawrence 74
Seymour results
Seymour didn’t have entries at 106, 170 and 195.
113-Rolando Baltazar, 2-2, fifth; 120-Ed Ramirez, 1-3, sixth; 126-Sam Castetter, 2-2, fourth; 132-Dunigan Huddleston, 1-3, sixth; 138-Ben Kriete, 2-2, fifth; 145-Alex Schlatterer, 1-3, sixth; 152-Collin Hankins, 1-3, sixth; 160-Leo Bustos, 0-2; 182-Hector Ruiz-Rosa, 2-2, fifth; 220-Brody Shipley, 3-1, third.