For whom the Bell tolls

Hereford’s Owen Bell was on a mission. His tournament run, just like his season, was flawless. Two pinfalls carried him through the early rounds before he scored a technical fall in his semifinal and then closed out his title run with a dominant 8-0 major decision over Middletown’s Alex DeVriendt.

“I think about all the teammates that help me throughout the whole season,” Bell said. “Even though they don’t make it to the state tournament or something, one of my teammates is still coming around and he was warming me up before my match.

“I was just really focused coming into this. I knew I wanted it really bad, I was confident.”

He finished his year 42-0, but to him it was never about chasing perfection. It was doing whatever he could do to earn state gold.

“Perfect season. To be honest, I wasn’t really going for that, that wasn’t my specific goal,” Bell said. “I was constantly trying to find the best competition for myself, so that wasn’t really my goal, I’m just happy to be a state champ.”

One final shot

Amondre Wooden came close to a state title as a freshman, finishing third, but hasn’t been able to get a shot a redemption since. The pandemic and academic issues kept him from getting another shot. But in his senior year, he got his chance — and he made the most of it.

Wooden (41-1) won a 9-4 decision over Stephen Decatur’s Gavin Solito to finally earn his state championship.

“I was very, very calm, settled, paced myself,” Wooden said. “I wasn’t going to get as tired. There’s just a lot of emotions in this.”

Wooden had one of the marquee semifinal matches against Manchester Valley’s Travis Green, who was 50-0 at the time. Wooden and Green were tied at 4 in the third period after Green evened it on a reversal, but Wooden got an escape for what became the winning point.

“Travis Green is a very good competitor,” Wooden said. “The way I beat him was setting up a good shot, setting up defensewise. He’s a good wrestler and that was a good match, a very good match.”