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Carbondale wrestlers roll to title at Centralia Class AA tournament

By Clint Harting, For the Southern

Sunday, February 3, 2008 12:03 AM CST

CENTRALIA - Featuring nine individual sectional qualifiers, the Carbondale Terriers walk away with the 2008 Centralia Regional wrestling championship Saturday with 189 team points.

Highland, a new entry to this particular regional field, captured second place with 168.5 points while rounding out the top five team scores were, last season's champs Mascoutah (146.5), Mt. Vernon (122) and Effingham (115).

All top three individuals in each weight class advance on to next weekends Class AA Granite City Sectional, while the Terriers will also partake in the Class AA Team Sectional which will be held Feb 19., also at Granite City.

Out of the nine Terriers to qualify out of their respective weight classes, five of them won it all, as Prentice Thomas took care of the lightweight division topping Alex Miller of Mt. Vernon on points 11-6.

At 119, Alli Ragan fought hard to get past Josh Faught of Centralia in her semifinal match in which she won vie pinfall at 5:08. Ragan then took care of a tough grappler from Highland, Dylan Anderson, in the title match as she won on points 3-2.

"My body was just tired, I wrestled really bad," said Ragan, a sophomore who is looking to get back to state, but struggled to make weight for Saturday.

"I had to get out (Of a near pinfall), explains Ragan of her match against Faught. "I got out and turned him luckily."

At 140, Mike McCann got the job done for the Terriers as he won his first two matches before out-pointing Adam Buening of Effingham 9-6 in the championship match.

Also winning a weight class was Nick Bleyer at 152, as Bleyer won his first match vie pinfall before taking down John Bowers of Highland in the title match in just 1:23.

Finally at heavyweight, Ayo Oyetunji won the 285-pound weight class with a pinfall over Jordan Lynch of Centralia in 4:42.

Jared Ragan captured second for the Terriers out of the 130-pound weight class, he fell to Kyle Williams of Mascoutah vie pinfall at 3:38 in the title match.

The Terriers featured three grapplers that had to earn their way to next weekend's Granite City Sectional through the wrestle-back rounds, but Nathan Qualls, Adam Hawk and Patrick Bleyer were all able to bounce back with third place wins.

"I was really afraid after last week of having a letdown," said Terriers head coach Dennis Ragan whose team came back to Centralia on Saturday after having won the conference title last weekend.

"But I really feel like we stepped up to another level than where we even wrestled last week."

The Marion Wildcats didn't advance anyone out as they took ninth place with 21.5 team points.

Matt Mitchell came the closest for the Willdcats out of the 130-pound weight class, but he fell in the third place match 14-3 to Devin Patterson of Mattoon.

Wildcats sophomore Will Luth, won his opening match 9-1 over James Holdner of Mascoutah, but fell in the second round and then dropped a 7-6 points decision in the third place consolation semifinal match with Centralia's Nick Jacobs.