Notre Dame Wrestlers Breeze Past CAK, 57-15

Fighting Irish Benefit From Six Forfeits

  • Wednesday, January 15, 2025
  • John Hunt

We all know that the success rate for high school wrestling teams isn’t good when they have a hard time filling all 14 weight classes.

There are a lot of teams with a number of quality individuals, but forfeits in a dual meet far outweigh those youngsters who are pretty good wrestlers.

That was the case at Notre Dame’s John Varallo Athletic Center/Jack Steiner Sr. Gymnasium Wednesday night when they faced the Warriors from Christian Academy of Knoxville.

The Warriors had seven young men who wrestled, so it was obvious from the start there was no way they could win against the Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame did win four of those seven contested matches and improved to 2-6 overall with the 57-15 victory.

The Irish are in a rebuilding mode of their own as they currently have 20 young men on their roster after starting the season with 28.  Many of them are first-year wrestlers, so it’s been tough as they wrestle teams with larger numbers and more experience on the mat.

Notre Dame coach Jay Adamson is doing his best to keep the morale high for his team as they lose more matches than they win, but he was just happy for his kids to get some time on the mat on Wednesday and more importantly, get rewarded with a win for all the hard work they’ve put in so far.

“Our main goal tonight was to go out and do the things we’ve been working on in the practice room,” Adamson began after the match ended.

“We have a really young team and lack experience, but I liked what I saw for the most part as we came in here tonight ready to fight.  That’s always a recipe for success.

“But we have some guys who got their first win ever tonight, so I’m really proud of the effort we put forth,” the third-year head coach added.

CAK coach Dan Young knows that his team faces impossible odds when so many weight classes go unfilled, but he liked what he saw as they won three individual matches along the way.

“Obviously, we’re short-staffed with few numbers, but I thought we wrestled tough as we have some good individuals,” he began.

“We just need to get more kids out as we aren’t going to win any dual meets when we forfeit this many weight classes.  We just do the best with what we have and hope things get better in the future,” he nodded.

The Irish never trailed as they got first-minute pins from Antonio Everhart and Luke Deitch at the start.

Miles Carter added a 4-1 decision at 165 in one of two matches that went the distance while Teddy Terry posted a second-period pin in the final match at 285 to give Notre Dame its final points.

Harrison Harwell had the only pin for CAK with a first-period fall at 120.  Landon Hunley won by injury default at 126 while Caleb Adkins had a sound 13-6 victory at 144 pounds.

Alex Pham, Matthew Loher, David Ramos, Hulices Gomez, Huntley Brown and Ivan Mendez all won by forfeit for the Irish while there was a double-forfeit at 190.

NOTRE DAME 57, CHRISTIAN ACADEMY OF KNOXVILLE 15

(Match began at 106 pounds)

106 – Antonio Everhart (ND) pinned Henry Suits, :52;

113 – Luke Deitch (ND) pinned George Sanford, :32;

120 – Harrison Harwell (CAK) pinned Shepherd Jones, 1:39;

126 – Landon Hunley (CAK) won by injury default over Diego Lopez;

132 – Alex Pham (ND) won by forfeit;

138 – Matthew Loher (ND) won by forfeit;

144 – Caleb Adkins (CAK) dec. Rick Snyder, 13-6;

150 – David Raymos (ND) won by forfeit;

157 – Hulices Gomez (ND) won by forfeit;

165 – Miles Carter (ND) dec. Kyler Cook, 4-1;

175 – Huntley Brown (ND) won by forfeit;

190 – Double forfeit;

215 – Ivan Mendez (ND) won by forfeit;

285 – Teddy Terry (ND) pinned Tucker Darga, 2:47.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)

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