“He told me he didn’t want to be the last state champ at Madison,” Svarda said after claiming the title with a 7-5 win over Wes Buetter of Delphos Jefferson.
Still, Svarda was nervous as he prepared for the title match at Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center.
Until the whistle blew to start the match, that is.
Svarda opened with a quick takedown as he took a 4-2 lead heading into the second period. The Mohawk added a third takedown in the second period to push the margin to 6-3 heading into the final two minutes.
“I was nervous all day and all last night,” Svarda said. “But when I stepped out there the nerves went away. Visualizing it (winning state) is fun, actually doing it is the best feeling in the world.”
Middletown senior Anthony Jagel bounced back from a tough semifinal loss at 106 in Division I on Friday night to finish fourth.
Jagel, who lost the semis in ultimate tiebreaker, won his consolation semis match 7-4 before falling 5-4 in the fourth-place match.
The mental bounce back from Friday night to Saturday morning was the toughest on Jagel.
“I couldn’t sleep at all,” he said. “All the hard work I had put in … I kept thinking about what I could have done better. I just wanted to come back and take third, and in my mind I did. And everyone else knows it too.”
Jagel appeared to have recorded the winning takedown in his consolation finals match as time expired, but it was ruled he did not have control when the clock ran out.
“All I can do is wrestle,” Jagel said. “I was pushing the pace and he was stalling and it just didn’t end up the way it should have, but deep down inside I know I won that match.”
Springboro’s Jonathan Floyd finished fourth at 285 after advancing on an illegal slam in the consolation semis. Floyd defaulted his finals match with Northmont’s Ryan Cloud.
Aaron Cox became the first seventh-place finisher in Ross history after winning his final match in Division II at 120.
“Being here last year took out the shock and awe of this place,” Cox said. “I knew I just had to come in and keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
Franklin senior Michael Crockett’s last match in high school had a bit of irony in it.
Crockett closed with a heartbreaking 9-6 loss to Carlisle’s Reece Human on backpoints in the final seconds. The win by Human ties the series with Crockett at 5-5.
“I think he will be a state champ before he graduates,” Crockett said of Human. “I had one person predicting I would finish eighth and one saying I wouldn’t place and I proved them both wrong. Once I lost my first match, I knew I could complete a goal of placing at state. I just had to take it one match at a time.”
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