Marysville High School’s varsity wrestling team split into a pair of squads over the weekend.
A portion of the Monarch roster traveled to Alliance High School to compete in the Top Gun Invitational.
Another group made the short trip to North Union for the Don Wasserbeck Invitational (see story on this page).
The Monarchs placed 14th out of 51 teams at Top Gun.
Aurora won the team title with 230 points, followed by Point Pleasant-224.5, Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary-140.5, Austintown-138, Highland-133.5, Perry-121, Delaware Hayes-116.5, Newcomerstown-102, Minerva-91 and Trinity-90 to round out the top ten.
MHS scored 78.5 points.
Monarch grapplers tallied the following records:
-120: Blaize Hall, 0-2;
-126: Nate Thompson, 2-2;
-132: Josh Melms, 1-2;
-138: Lincoln Heard, 5-2;
-145: Jack Golla, 4-3, eighth place;
-152; Erryl Will, 5-2, fourth;
-160: Colton Powers, 1-2;
-170: Christian McCartney, 2-2;
-182: Ben Bickerstaff, 3-2;
-220: Joey Palmer, 1-2;
-285: Zach McMinn, 2-2.
“As a program, we have always used Brecksville and Top Gun as measuring sticks,” said Monarch coach Shawn Andrews. “Our team made some progress during that two-week time period, but we still have a long way to go.
“We had two sophomores (Golla and Will) on the podium at a tournament like this,” said the coach. “Erryl wrestled really well, falling in OT and a 4-3 match to state runner-up Terry from Granville.
“Jack Golla gutted out some tough wins to finish eighth,” said Andrews.
The Monarchs will travel to Upper Arlington to face a veteran Golden Bear squad on Thursday.
They will then travel this weekend to Austintown Fitch for the Josh Hepner Memorial Tournament.
“We will get the chance to see some of the same teams that were at Top Gun, which gives us the chance to make some adjustments,” said Andrews.