News Journal Wrestling Poll: Who takes top spot ahead of this weekend's league tournaments?

MANSFIELD – Spoiler alert!

If you don’t want to know how the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament is going to shake out on Saturday, you should probably avoid looking at this second News Journal High School Wrestling Poll of the season.

The first poll, ranking nine Richland Country programs and three bordering schools, was released in early January, just days before the 61st J.C. Gorman Invitational.

READY TO RUMBLE: Rockin’ in the Valley: Wrestlers feed off student energy as Clear Fork hosts assembly meet

As it turned out, the final team standings looked a lot like the first team poll. A lot. So much so that the top five area finishers in the Gorman – one of Ohio’s oldest and largest regular season tournaments – finished in the exact same order as they appeared in the rankings.

Prophetic, right?

Ontario, ranked No. 1, was the top area finisher, taking third place. No. 2 Ashland was fourth; No. 3 Clear Fork was fifth; No. 4 Galion was seventh and No. 5 Northmor finished 10th in the 32-team field.

The top five in the rankings stay the same in this newest poll, which could be a good omen for Ontario this weekend. The Warriors will try to unseat defending champion/host Clear Fork and hold off Galion in what figures to be another hotly-contested MOAC tournament.

Ashland, meanwhile, will be at Madison on Saturday looking for its first Ohio Cardinal Conference crown since 2021 under new head coach Tommy Bauer.

Northmor, with four state-ranked wrestlers in its lineup, will try to overtake reigning champ Marion Elgin when it hosts the Knox Morrow Athletic Conference meet.

The final News Journal poll will be released after the state tournament, with the sectional and district run-up to Columbus beginning next week. Until then, here’s how things stand:

1. Ontario: It would be hard to bet against the Warriors right now. They have the No. 1 and 2-ranked Division II wrestlers at 106 and 113 pounds in brothers Aiden and Jacob Ohl. Mason Turnbaugh had himself a January, repeating as champ at the Gorman and Sally George Invitational and also logging career victory No. 100, with another season to go.

How about this for milestones? Landon Campbell, a 2022 state medalist and new addition to the lineup at 215 pounds, recently recorded his 100th pin.

If not for missing Jacob Ohl and a couple of other starters, Ontario would have repeated as champ in the Sally George, instead settling for runner-up. The Warriors did lose a dual to Northmor, but were missing three starters. More telling were duals on back-to-back days with Clear Fork and Galion. They won them both, beating their stiffest competition in the MOAC.

2. Ashland: If the Arrows don’t win their first OCC title in three years, it’s only a matter of time. They have four freshmen in the lineup who have combined for 109 victories: Mason Bauer at 106 (34-1), Max Ohl at 113 (23-9), Guardian Miller at 126 (32-5) and Isaak Wickham at 132 (19-10).

In the DI rankings, Bauer is No. 6, Miller is No. 9, Ohl is No. 26, and seniors Noah Fent (17-17, 150) and Cayden Spotts (32-7, 215) are ranked 25th and 8th, respectively. Another solid wrestler for the Arrows is junior Cooper Smith, 25-10 at 190.

Who says they are too young to win a league title this year?

3. Clear Fork: You can never count out the Colts. They’ve flown under the radar the last three years and yet have won two MOAC titles in that span. You wouldn’t think they quite measure up to Ontario, but they’ve gotten state medalist Luke Schlosser (165) and state qualifier Peyton Hoskins (132) back from injury in the past couple of weeks and they should feel fresher than most going forward. Schlosser and his brother, Blake, a Gorman champ, give Clear Fork back-to-back hammers at 165 and 175. It’s hard to tell them apart, on or off the mat.

4. Galion: The biggest thing the Tigers have going for them is three state title contenders in Carter Trukovich (113), Gradey Harding (120) and Alex Griffith (285). And there are plenty of guys around them that can get the job done on any given day.

Harding went 5-1 and Griffith 4-1 at a loaded Maumee Bay Classic, while Trukovich, sidelined by injury for a few weeks, came back to go 4-0 at the Sally George without giving up an offensive point.

5. Northmor: The Knights scored a nice 45-36 win over Ontario at Crestview’s Jesse Campbell Duals. They also won the 21-team Robin Drumm Memorial Tournament in Heath, getting titles from Carter Thomas (106), Brady Carr (113), Cowin Becker (132) and Carson Campbell (157).

Becker, already a two-time state medalist with another year to go, was named the tourney’s Outstanding Wrestler.

They went 4-4 at the Jesse Campbell, with these notable records posted by the Knights: Ethan Amens (8-0), Becker (8-0), Campbell (7-1) and Carr (7-1).

6. Plymouth: The Big Red rolled up 255 points at Columbus Academy to win the 10-team Kevin Michael Memorial, their second tournament title of the season. Their two standouts – Cam Wagers (120) and Noah Robinson (215) – won titles and the other finalists were Thomas Winegardner (106), Bobby Bowman (126), Isaiah Miller (157) and Riley Gunner (285).

More recently, Plymouth finished second at Garaway. The only champ for the Big Red was Winegardner, 4-0 on the day. Wagers and Robinson were runners-up. Wagers was up with a minute left against a ranked DII foe from Minerva when he got caught in a desperation throw. Robinson lost to the projected state champ from Harrison Central.

7. Madison: The Rams have been runners-up in a couple of tournaments this season, even though Mike Thomas (120) is the only senior in the lineup. He’s been sidelined after having eye surgery but is expected back for sectionals. He’ll be looking for a repeat trip to state and could be joined there by two other state-ranked Rams – freshman Aiden Proctor (138) and sophomore heavyweight Jaxin Stancombe.

8. Crestview: The Cougars aren’t as top-to-bottom strong as they’ve been in the past, but they do boast the No. 1-ranked Division III heavyweight in Caleb Cunningham. He followed up his 10-0 win in the Gorman finals over Galion’s Alex Griffith, ranked No. 3 in DII, by going 9-0 in the Jesse Campbell Dual Tournament at home. He also won a title at the Thunderbird Invitational.

The other consistent placers for Crestview have been Jaden Hedrick (144) and Jack Stephens (165).

9. Lexington: The Minutemen were fourth in the 22-team Fredericktown Invitational, three spots ahead of Shelby. Six placed in the top six, led by sophomore 215-pounder Cole Eichorn, a runner-up. Owen Reamsnider (132) and Kolton Clever (157) took third, while Aedam Nicol (285) was fifth and Cayden Kunkle (144), Nathan Reed (165) and David Biggers (190) took sixth.

10. Shelby: Three wrestlers, in particular, have stepped up for the Whippets – Arthur Cain (126), Denny Lafon (144) and Christian Santiz (190).

Lafon was 6-0, Santiz was 5-0 and Cain was 4-1 as Shelby finished seventh out of 22 teams at the Fredericktown Invitational. The team also finished fifth at Centerburg, with Cain and Lafon winning titles and Santiz finishing as a runner-up.

Josh Mancel (215) matched Cain’s 4-1 mark at Fredericktown.

11. Lucas: Junior 190-pounder Rayden Caudill, a returning district qualifier, is 30-10 with eight technical falls. But in some ways the real star is his father, Billy, for coming forward and taking over the varsity program at the last minute when all hope for a season appeared lost.

Assisting the new head coach is Steve Flannery, a retired Army major who wrestled in the service as well as Mansfield Senior in the 1980s.

The younger Caudill was runner-up and junior Stevaon Irby (132) finished fourth in the recent Dave Rohr Classic at Mapleton. The Cubs also have a talented senior in Colby Crawford.

Even though a lot of first-year wrestlers help fill out the roster, there is plenty of optimism for the future, thanks to a solid junior high team led by former varsity head coach Ed Finley and a large biddy program with roughly 16 kids.

12. Mansfield Senior: The Tygers and first-year head coach Jacob Endicott are going through some serious growing pains as they try to build some momentum for the postseason. Sophomore Alijah Scott (190) and senior Kayvon Smith (175) had winning records at mid-season, but Senior High scored only nine points in the Gorman and entered only nine wrestlers in the tournament – including one freshman and three sophomores.

The Tygers did have a placer at the Fredericktown Invitational, with Christain Ross taking sixth at 126.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Ontario Warriors looking strong in latest News Journal Wrestling Poll