The spotlight illuminated the center of the wrestling mat at Avon Lake High School as Shoremen 144-pounder Brayden Patterson took Elyria’s Ryan Scott to overtime.
The two moved nonstop for those first six minutes, and Patterson wasn’t messing around. He took only a few seconds of the overtime period to quickly make his move on Scott.
Spinning around and securing the two-point takedown, Patterson’s victory Jan. 10 helped Avon Lake secure a 48-26 dual win over Elyria, ending the shorthanded Pioneer’s undefeated conference dual run.
“It just feels good to come out here and show other opponents what we can do as a team,” Patterson said. “We’re still a young team, but we’re still getting better as the year goes on.”
Both wrestlers showed mental toughness and grit on the mat under the fixed spotlight in the rafters. For Patterson, Jan. 10 was his night to come up with a big win that had the crowd roaring.
“I just wanted to get out there and get it over with,” Patterson said. “No messing around. Just straight to business.”
Avon Lake coach Scott Sedlick put it best on how a wrestler like Patterson and others in the room can continue to stack success like tonight’s as a springboard as teams shift into midseason mode.
“The more momentum you get, the more confidence you can get because wrestling is a mindset sport,” the fifth-year coach said.
“If you’re not having that confidence going out there and trying to win, you get those wins and they start building on each other. It doesn’t matter who you’ve wrestled against. As long as you’re getting wins, you’re feeling good about yourself and that confidence is going to build into wins later.”
On the other side of the mat, Elyria is a perfect example of that mindset as a standard bearer in Lorain County and across the state over the last 25-plus years. Second-year coach Armando Torres’ Pioneers wrestled hard despite giving up five matches to forfeits.
While there were some successes, more work can be done as both teams will meet several more times at various tournaments the remainder of the season.
“Us coaches knew we were coming in a little short-handed today,” Torres noted. “We wanted to really focus on making sure our guys competed at their weight class and do their job at their weight. I think we had nine matches today in total, so I wanted all nine of those guys to go out there today and compete, and wrestle hard.
“For the most part, I saw a lot of good things – I saw some guys competing and wrestling tough and hard. Avon Lake’s obviously has been a great team in our conference with them coming back and being defending SWC champions.”
Iron sharpens iron, and great competition brings the best out of everyone and as Torres said, be able to set the tone at the conference tournament – back at Avon Lake – in roughly a month’s time.
“You want to push them and set a tone for the conference tournament coming up. I told these guys we’ve gotta refocus and look at what we need to improve on in our individual matches and move forward. We’ve got (the) Maumee Bay (tournament) coming up this weekend, so it’s a great way to bounce back.”
