RAVENNA HOPES TO IMPROVE IN ITS SECOND YEAR OF WRESTLING

Local Sports Journal

Last season, Ravenna took the mat for the first time as a varsity wrestling program.

Starting their second season, the Bulldogs hope to show more improvement with a young, but talented, team.

Ravenna has no seniors on the team this season, but a solid core of returning wrestlers.

“In the second year of our program, our team is still very young with our most experienced wrestlers being sophomores,” said Ravenna coach James English, whose team finished with a 5-20 record a year ago.

That group of sophomores includes Jesse Eckhardt (135), Zach Murrell (160), Brandon Griffin (171), Scott Hutson (171), Gabe Zimmer (189) and Ben Peterson (285).

Juniors on the Bulldogs team are Jeremy Wahr (119), Travis Helsen (130), Robert Pleimling (130), Chantze Veen (140), Jacob Dygas (145), Jordan Grimm (152) and  Zack Maycroft (152).

Freshmen that will look to contribute for the Bulldogs this season will be Derek Forner (119), Patrick Phillips (125), Nolan Liszewski (130), David Lewis (145) and Elex Sekolewski (215).

“Our young team will take some lumps against Whitehall and Shelby,” English said. “But, we should gain valuable knowledge from those experiences. We look forward to getting out of the basement in the WMC and being able to compete in the middle of the pack.”