Moore looks to six veterans to lead BW wrestling squad

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut enters the 2012–13 wrestling sea­son look­ing to six return­ing let­ter men to lead a young and inex­pe­ri­enced Golden Eagle squad through what promises to be a chal­leng­ing Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion schedule.

Back from last season’s 7–8 squad which fin­ished fifth in the OCC Cap­i­tal with a 3–4 mark for fifth-year head coach Luke Moore, are senior three-year let­ter win­ner CJ Har­ness (16–15 record) at 160 pounds, three junior two-year let­ter win­ners in Alec Eisnnicher (19–11) at 170, Jhor­dan Lang (8–23) at 182 and Austin Carr (7–5) at 152 pounds along with sopho­more first-year let­ter win­ners in Donny Did­ion (30–18) and Tyler Sat­ter­field (14–19) at 113 and 132 pounds, respectively.

“Alec and Donny are both return­ing Divi­sion II Cen­tral Dis­trict qual­i­fiers, Alec in 2010 and Donny in 2011,” Moore said. “They have put in a lot of time dur­ing the off sea­son, and com­bin­ing that with their post­sea­son expe­ri­ence, that will help them develop their lead­er­ship roles for this season.”

Moore also pointed to the hard off-season work of Har­ness, Carr and Lang as a key to the Golden Eagles’ suc­cess for the upcom­ing season.

“CJ, Austin and Jhor­dan have also been work­ing very hard and have got­ten a lot stronger as a result of their efforts,” Moore said. “Their suc­cess will be a huge key to the team’s success.”

The Big Wal­nut squad also has some big shoes to fill with the grad­u­a­tion of four seniors, includ­ing four-year let­ter win­ners in Jason Grif­fith (285), Gene Hogg (220) and Aaron Gase (152) along with three-year vet­eran Tyler Schenz (145).

Gase was the recip­i­ent of the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, Schenz the Most Valu­able Wrestler Award, Grif­fith the Most Improved Wrestler Award and Hoff the Most Coura­geous Wrestler Award.

“We grad­u­ated four great senior lead­ers which equates to a loss of 300 wins, eight trips to the Dis­trict and three Dis­trict place­ments,” Moore said.

Schenz was a two-time Dis­trict placer while Gase, who was also a Dis­trict placer, joined Grif­fith and Hogg as Dis­trict qual­i­fiers. Schenz and Grif­fith earned First Team All-OCC hon­ors, Gase earned Third Team All-OCC and Grif­fith Fourth Team All-OCC recognition

“Find­ing replace­ments for Jason, Gene, Aaron and Tyler will be tough,” Moore said. “But we have a group that is eager to step up and accept that challenge.”

Moore will look to 16 new­com­ers to fill out the Golden Eagles’ var­sity roster.

Four juniors head up the list, includ­ing RJ Mar­tin (138), a trans­fer from St. Fran­cis DeSales who was a 2010 Dis­trict qual­i­fier, along with Logan Lucas (145), Michael Takatch (145) and Austin Crow (220). Sopho­more Michael Nash moves up from BW’s junior var­sity squad.

Round­ing out the Golden Eagle ros­ter are senior Joe McDon­nell (285), sopho­more Jack Schnurr (145), fresh­men Drew Cochran (120), Nico Grier (113), Jacob Had­den (120), Tyler Hogg (195), Wes Lan­drum (120), Anthony Pisano (152), Evan Watkins (170), Brad Whitesed (152) and Daniel Zitello (160).

Look­ing to the OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion com­pe­ti­tion, Moore sees the divi­sion tougher than it has been in past sea­sons with the addi­tion of Olen­tangy which switched OCC Divi­sions with Hilliard Bradley, the Braves mov­ing from the Car­di­nal Divi­sion to the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion and the Jaguars leav­ing the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion for the Car­di­nal Division.

“I think the OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion will be the tough­est its has ever been with addi­tion of Olen­tangy and the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the other pro­grams within the divi­sion like Olen­tangy Orange and Delaware Hayes,” Moore said. “The bat­tle for the top spot will be like a dog fight week in and week out.”

Big Wal­nut placed sixth with its 3–4 mark in the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion, trail­ing Bradley (7–0), Mount Ver­non (6–1), Olen­tangy Orange (5–2) and Delaware Hayes (4–3). The Golden Eagles return four All-OCC mem­bers from last sea­son, includ­ing Eisnnicher (Sec­ond Team), Did­ion (Third Team), Sat­ter­field (Fourth Team) and Har­ness (Fourth Team)

“We have a young, inex­pe­ri­enced team that is going to take some lumps through­out the sea­son,” Moore said. “How­ever, I think our group is extremely hard work­ing and ready to take on all chal­lengers. I look for our guys to show steady improve­ment through­out the sea­son and con­tinue to grow and learn from every com­pe­ti­tion we have … this should be an extremely fun team team to coach and the poten­tial to become a great team when we reach the end of the season.”

Moore’s coach­ing staff includes assis­tants Aaron Mor­ris and Tony Eisnnicher.

Big Walnut’s var­sity opens its 2012–13 slate on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 8, host­ing the Big Wal­nut duals begin­ning at 10 a.m. at the high school. The Golden Eagles open their OCC Cap­i­tal sched­ule on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 13 at 6 p.m. at Olentangy.

The Golden Eagle JVs open their com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 1 at 10 a.m. at Northmor.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.