Ruger Goeltzenleuchter takes down his opponent.
Wayne Trace Wrestling would square off in their first tournament of the season at the Arcadia Invitational on December 10th. Coach Clemens took his young squad east not sure how they would respond in their first tournament action of the season. This year’s edition of the red, white, and blue is a little low on numbers and experience, but is anchored by senior Ruger Goeltzenleuchter, a returning state placer.
Wayne Trace would field only 9 wrestlers: a senior, a junior, a freshman, and 6 sophomores, but would not take long for this team to respond in a big way. In the first round, only one Raider would suffer a loss and in the second round, no Raider would suffer a loss. In fact, Wayne Trace would lead this tournament for most of the day and garner bonus points via tech falls and pins in most of their wins.
As the final points were added for place finishers, the Raiders would fall behind Van Buren merely due to less placers to add to their score. They would lose Caleb Baughman to an injury and with only eight wrestlers capturing placement points, they would still out distance all other teams to be runners up. Van Buren would capture the title with 229 points, WT 194.5, Montpelier 192.5, and Elmwood with 182 would round out the top four teams.
Individually, 126# Caleb Baughman and HWY Noah Rell would both finish in 6th place. 138# Austin Smith, 3-2, would capture a fourth place finish. Finishing third would be 106# Daniel Ruiz, 3-1, and 152# Kameran Bevis, 4-1. 120# Tyler Bauer, 4-1, and 145# Wyatt Stabler, 3-1, would both be runners up for the day.
Hunter Showalter would find himself a top the podium as the 160# champion. He would go 4-0 on the day with three pins and a major decision. He would upset the #2 seed on the day, and would be one of two Raider champions at the tournament.
132# Ruger Goeltzenleuchter would run the table at Arcadia and find himself the Arcadia tournament champion and the MOW, most outstanding wrestler, as voted on by the coaches. Ruger would control all matches and would post three tech fall wins by takedown only.
Ruger would post an astonishing 43 takedowns in this tournament as he sets his sights on achieving his goal for the year of breaking the historical single season takedown record for the state of Ohio. “He is very capable of attaining his goal for takedowns and is on pace to achieve that. He put together an amazing performance today,” commented Coach Clemens. “Overall, I am so proud of this young team. Ruger comes out and wrestles like the wrestler he is and you know what Ruger is going to give you, but for the rest of this team to come out and battle the way they did was exciting to see. We are young, but we wrestle hard, and there is no quit in this group.” Coach Clemens concluded with, “I am very satisfied finishing in second place today with a smaller and young team.” Wayne Trace hosted senior night on Thursday, December 15th at Wayne Trace hosting Ayersville and Tinora.
