TYLER BECK ... STATE CHAMPION!!!

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

COLUMBUS — In an epic bloody and bru­tal bat­tle that more resem­bled a last-man-standing fight between two glad­i­a­tors than a state cham­pi­onship high school wrestling match, Northmor’s Tyler Beck emerged as the sur­vivor … uh-h-h … win­ner, in over­time over long-time neme­sis Dal­ton Ish­mael last Sat­ur­day night before a fren­zied crowd of nearly 14,000 in Value City Arena, earning him­self the title of state cham­pion.
“I guess all things ARE pos­si­ble with the Lord,” said a beam­ing Beck, a 195-pound senior, moments after record­ing a take­down of North Baltimore’s Ish­mael with 23 sec­onds remain­ing in over­time to wrap up a thrilling 6–4 vic­tory in Divi­sion III.

It was a vicious match between the foes that included numer­ous blood stop­pages, a delay of sev­eral min­utes when Ish­mael was injured in the third period, Beck careen­ing off the ele­vated plat­form that the mat was on in the same frame, Ish­mael hav­ing his head wrapped in an attempt to stop a nose­bleed late in the match, and a halt in action of a minute or so when Beck was poked in the eye in over­time.
Just 11 sec­onds after com­pe­ti­tion resumed fol­low­ing the eye-poke inci­dent, Beck shocked Ish­mael — the Ohio high school career leader in pins — with a lightning-quick legs-shot take­down to score the win­ning points as a loud roar from the crowd filled the arena.

“This is what I’ve worked eight or more years for,” a hum­ble, soft-spoken Beck said in the media inter­view room only two min­utes removed from the brawl. “The far­ther the match went, the more con­fi­dent I was and it all fell into place.” Asked how the unex­pected detour off the plat­form and onto the arena floor affected him, the cham­pion responded, “It didn’t hurt at all when I hit the floor. I’m not sure if it was my adren­a­line or what. It prob­a­bly looked a lot worse than it was. I’m sure I’ll feel it tomor­row,” he added with a smile.

With more than 150 career pins, Ish­mael — like Beck, a senior — isn’t use to matches going into the third period and over­time. He entered the bat­tle with a 45–1 mark this win­ter — the only loss being via dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion in an ear­lier tour­na­ment when he used an ille­gal hold that resulted in an oppo­nent sus­tain­ing a seri­ous injury.
Ish­mael was 3rd in the state at 195 a year ago, and 5th at 189 as a sopho­more. Both years, he defeated Beck at “The Big Dance” includ­ing via a con­vinc­ing 12–2 count in 2012.
Beck was 8th at 189 pounds as a sopho­more.
The vic­tory was the 50th in 51 matches this sea­son for Northmor’s most recently crowned state champ. His lone loss was to Lexington’s Josh Lehner. Lehner posted a 52–0 record and won the Divi­sion II 195-pound state championship.

North­mor head coach Scott Carr said the strat­egy late in the match wasn’t com­pli­cated. “We just told him to keep work­ing. He’s been work­ing on leg attacks the past three to four months. He’s got a 3.7 GPA. He’s a smart kid.”
The fifth-year head coach has two of Northmor’s four state cham­pi­ons under his helm. Tyler Heminger won in 2011 after three con­sec­u­tive sea­sons as a runner-up. When it was men­tioned that both of his state cham­pi­ons are named Tyler, Carr responded with a laugh, “It’s gonna be a pretty pop­u­lar name now (in Mor­row County).”
C.B. Doll­away — cur­rently a mixed mar­tial arts pro­fes­sional fighter — became the Golden Knights’ first state titlist in 2002.
Two years later, Brian Baldridge fol­lowed suit.

The Black-and-Gold — who placed 12th as a team with 39.5 points — had three wrestlers in the tour­na­ment earn trips to the podium and medals.
Beck’s team­mates — Jamie Baldridge (145 pounds) and Colin Vis­conti (152) — were 5th and 8th, respec­tively, in their weight classes.
Baldridge is a junior.
Vis­conti — who had arthro­scopic in Jan­u­ary — is a senior.

Galion junior Zac Tupps also secured a trip to the podium and an accom­pa­ny­ing medal by plac­ing 4th at 126 pounds. Tupps reg­is­tered a 3–2 record in his sec­ond trip to Colum­bus. Two of his three tri­umphs were of the over­time vari­ety. He also rang up a major deci­sion. On the sea­son, he posted a fine 52–7 mark — the wins being a GHS single-season record.
Another Tiger — sopho­more Deaken McCoy — wres­tled in the seniors and juniors dom­i­nated 220-pound weight class. One of only two under­class­men in the 16-wrestlers field of that divi­sion — McCoy went 1–2. His win was by pin in the open­ing round.
The Orange-and-Blue tied with Upper San­dusky for 32nd place at 17 points. The Rams had six wrestlers in the tour­na­ment. Troy Chris­t­ian secured the team cham­pi­onship with 95.5 points — 13 more then runner-up Delta.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Mar 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.