Raiders vs Grove City: A Big Season Home Opener

With a 7-1 record, the very talented Grove City Eagles come into the Raiders gym on Wednesday to wrestle the first home match of the 2023-24 season.

Both teams are coming off the super tough Powerade holiday tournament with several good individual performances.  Raider Louie Gill earned a 3rd place medal and Eagle Hunter Hohman nabbed a 6th place while several other wrestlers from both teams won multiple matches.

There were only two instances of RHS-GCHS individual matchups at Powerade: Chase Bell eked out a 2-1 win over Will Schell (GC). And Nolan Renick (GC) pinned Kolton Wilkinson in a big move after Kolton was winning and in control just moments before.

Note: Jr High matches will start at 6:00pm. Varsity follows around 7:00.

As usual, the Reynolds Wrestling Legacy Club will livestream all the action on the Reynolds Wrestling News Facebook Page with Ryan Hills and Gaye McLaughlin at the microphones.

...but if you live in the local area, get your butt into a seat at the school!

All time series & milestones: 

•    Reynolds 60 wins and no losses!

•    2001 Reynolds 500th win over GC 76-0

When I look at the series record, I am amazed that Grove City has never won a match against Reynolds.  Grove City has had many great teams and the odds against them winning at least one match against us are staggering.  Even though most of us are accustomed to a historical lop-sided win-loss ledger against other schools, we can only guess that on the years where they were good, we must have had some of our better teams as well.

Grove City Review:

Season Record: 7-1 (2-0 league)

Result        Opponent

W 57-12 Mercer

W     48-21 +Brockway

W   72- 6 +Beaver County Christian

W    48- 9 +Slippery Rock

W    60- 6 +Franklin

W    58-16 +Harbor Creek

L     27-36 *Greenville

W    59-18 *Howland, OH

+Sharpsville Walleye Duals

*Greenville Tri-Meet

Tournaments:

Powerade 32nd place

   --Hunter Hohman - 6th place, 172 lbs.

This year's Eagles edition has a roster full of seasoned stars and tough newcomers. Leading Grove City are the Hohman brothers; both returning state medalists, Hudson (So, 4th) and Hunter (Sr, 2nd & 7th, 103 career wins). Not far behind is veteran junior Cody Hamilton, already with 78 career wins.

Throw in a supporting cast of experienced wrestlers Will Schell, Connor Naser, Nolan Renick and Ian McCreary along with successful rookie Tanner Hamilton and you have a team that is capable of winning a lot of matches.  To add to their effectiveness, the Eagles have the capability to get lots of bonus points.

Already, they have recorded an incredible 50 pins this season!  This includes Schell (9), Hunter Hohman (7), Cody Hamilton, Hudson Hohman, Renick & McCreary (5 each), Tanner Hamilton & Boanes (4 each) and Naser (3). Also, Cody Hamilton has earned 4 major decisions too.

Conversely, a few of their wrestlers have given up pins too.  Their bigs, Nolan Renick and Delathian Boanes, are basically pin or get pinned types of wrestlers.  The rest of the team hasn't given up many pins but their lone loss to Greenville was due to the Eagles giving up bonus points.  Grove City won 7 of the 13 weight classes but gave up 5 pins and a forfeit!  This shows how dangerous of an opponent the Eagles can be.  Are the Raiders able to take advantage of getting big bonus points too?

Reynolds Review:

Season Record: 2-0

Result Opponent

W     73- 0 Mercer

W     52-13 Slippery Rock

Tournaments:

Walsh Ironman  33rd place

   -- Louie Gill 5th place

Powerade            13th place

   -- Louie Gill 3rd place

For the young Raider team to come through the toughest-in-the-country tournament run with most of the wrestlers having winning or 50-50 records against national level competition is quite an accomplishment.  Most of the starters racked up at least two wins at both the Ironman and Powerade events. 

These already tough tournaments have evolved to be more elite over the years with the private schools from across the country dominating the talent pool.  As was pointed out in a post last week, Reynolds finished as the top AA public school at Powerade.  We are a greedy fan base and want to beat all the teams, regardless of status, but this is something that others across the state notice.

Louie Gill has led the team by placing at both tournaments.  Angelo Lomonte, Waylon Waite, rookie Logan Stewart, Chase Bell, Vito Gentile, and Louie DeJulia all have winning records after their strong performances in the tournaments and our first dual matches.  Additionally, Colton Tupper (another freshman) and Casey Resek came through December with .500 records and Greyden Gustas just one win away from evening up his record. This is a great indication of the potential of the 2023-24 team.

Colton also earned a 3rd place medal at the Powerade JV tournament too, doubling up duties with the varisty tourney by wrestling 11 matches in two days!

So far, the young Raiders have pinned only 16 opponents in December.  Team leaders in this category are Chase Bell with 4 and Louie Gill with 3. We expect (and hope) this is due to the high level of competition they have faced. 

It is important that the pin ratio improves as they move into more regional level contests.  Increasing the production points via pins, techs and majors while not giving up bonus points may well dictate the level of success for this team.

Lineups:

Only the lowest weight a person wrestled is listed.  You can be sure that some lineup shifting will happen for tactical needs.  Note that Grove City has forfeited the 107-weight class in matches so far.

Grove City

Wt Name Yr Rec

114 Hamilton, Tanner (Fr) 8-2

121 Bish, Ethan (Fr) 0-1

121 Davis, Anthony (Sr) 4-3

127 Koprivnak, Taven (Fr) 1-1

127 Naser, Connor (Jr) 7-3

133 Augustine, Peter (Fr) 6-2

133 Hohman, Hudson (So) 9-3

139 Schell, Will (Sr) 9-3

152 Bubenheim, Carl (Jr) 1-1

152 Hamilton, Cody (Jr) 11-2

160 Garzarelli, Dominic (Sr) 1-0

172 Hohman, Hunter (Sr) 12-3

189 McCreary, Ian (Jr) 8-2

215 Renick, Nolan (Jr) 7-5

285 Boanes, Delathian (So) 5-3

--- Salmon, Mathew (Fr) ---

Reynolds

Wt Name Yr Rec

107 Lomonte, Angelo (Jr) 7-4

107 Ranalli, Brayden (Jr) 2-0

114 Waite, Waylon (So) 5-4

121 Gill, Louie (Sr) 12-4

127 Stewart, Logan (Fr) 7-4

133 Anderson, Brendon (Fr) 1-4

139 Bell, Chase (Sr) 6-5

139 Gustas, Greyden (So) 4-5

145 Malgieri, Kevyn (Sr) 1-5

160 Gentile, Vito (Jr) 6-4

172 DeJulia, Louie (Jr) 6-4

189 Tupper, Colton (So) 4-4

215 Wilkinson, Kolton (Sr) 1-4

285 Resek, Casey (So) 4-4

--- Johnson, Emery (Fr) ---

--- Wolbert, Hudson (So) ---

State Rankings:

My usual caveat:  These are just good discussion topics.  The kids determine the truth on the mat! Based on these rankings, the Waite-Hamilton matchup at 114 may be the marque match of the night if they both compete at this weight. But if either team strategically bumps someone up or down a weight class, we may see other contests of ranked wrestlers.

Team:

 9.  Reynolds

32.  Grove City

Individual (Wt-Rank-Name-Yr):

Reynolds

107 12. Angelo Lamonte (11)

114 18. Waylon Waite (10)

121 3. Louie Gill (12)

127 8. Logan Stewart (9)

139 7. Chase Bell (12)

160 10. Vito Gentile (11)

Grove City

114 23. Tanner Hamilton (9)

133 5. Hudson Hohman (10)

152 9. Cody Hamilton (11)

172 2. Hunter Hohman (12)

Milestone Watch:

I won’t say much more about these until we are closer to reaching the goals.  But keep your eye on these threshold events.

Coach Casey Taylor

241-31 Record -- 9 wins to reach 250 this year.

Chase Bell

86-45 -- countdown to 100 wins.

Save me a seat!