Greenfield-Central’s Lincoln Parsons tangles with New Palestine’s Cole Vandygriff during the 113-pound final of the Hoosier Heritage Conference Tournament, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023.
Tom Russo | The Daily Reporter
It’s called the Hoosier Heritage Conference Wrestling Tournament but you might as well call it a mini-state championship.
The quality of competition Saturday at Pendleton Heights High School will be high.
Defending state champions, state-ranked wrestlers and top-billing matches as early as the quarterfinals will all make for an exciting day of thrills of victories and agonies of defeat.
Greenfield-Central is going for its fourth straight crown and is expected to have strong battles from Delta and New Palestine. All three schools participated in last week’s team state duals. G-C was fifth and New Pal ninth in the 3A division. Delta won the 2A tournament.
“Our conference is so tough. For example, Gunner [Butt] got fifth in conference last year and got sixth in the state,” New Palestine coach Andrew Frey said. “Our conference is really good and we’re going to see a lot of those similar situations this weekend. Really good guys might be wrestling for third or fifth.”
Butt is one of a strong lineup of wrestlers in today’s 126-pound class. The New Palestine sophomore is matched up in a quarterfinal against Greenfield-Central’s Lincoln Parsons, who won the 113-pound conference title last season.
The winner in that match will likely face Delta’s top-seeded unbeaten Neal Mosier, fourth in the state meet last season, in the semifinal. Pendleton Heights’ 23-1 Max Bowers and Mt. Vernon’s Eli Broady (27-2), another state qualifier from a year ago, are on the other side of the bracket.
“When you look at the seeds, and if everybody wrestles to their seeds, it’s a six-point difference between us and Delta,” Greenfield-Central coach Josh Holden said. “It’s going to be close. To make up the six points you have to pin people when you can. We have three guys that are really good wrestlers that didn’t get seeded. They’ve got to get it out of their brain that they didn’t get seeded and prove people wrong. If you can do that and get four to seven guys wrestle above their seed and then get a bunch of pins you can win the thing.
“If you don’t do that, you aren’t going to beat Delta, and you’re not beating New Pal, there’s just too many dogs.”
Those aren’t the only teams with quality wrestlers either.
Mt. Vernon, along with Broady, have two others that have state tournament experience in Connor Bayliss, the No. 2 seed at 113, and Devin Kendrex, who won the conference title in his weight class last year and is the No. 1 seed at 215.
New Castle brings in a defending state champion in Tylin Thrine (132).
Delta has four (106, 113, 126, 165) unbeaten top seeds, New Castlehas two (132, 138) and Pendleton Heights has one (144).
Greenfield-Central has four top-seeded wrestlers, Jett McGuire (120), Kannon Zuber (150), Clay Guenin (190) and Brayden Flener (285). New Palestine has one, Jaedyn Jeffries (157).
To win last year’s championship, Greenfield-Central had 13 of 14 wrestlers finish in the top four.
Along with Parsons and Kendrex, G-C’s Guenin and Silas Frye were HHC champs last season.
“It’s going to be an interesting weekend that I don’t think anyone could predict,” Frey added.
Wrestling begins at 8:30 a.m.
It’s not the only HHC championship on the line Saturday.
The HHC Boys Swimming and Diving Championships will take place at the New Palestine Natatorium.
New Palestine hosted the girls championships last week, won by Greenfield-Central.
On Saturday at New Pal, diving action begins at 9 a.m. with finals to take place for swimming and diving at 1 p.m.
Yorktown is the defending champion, edging New Palestine and Mt. Vernon a year ago.
Yorktown scored 391, with the Dragons close behind with 368. Mt. Vernon, champions in 2021 and 2022, placed third with 359. Greenfield-Central was fourth.
