Coff man’s Frye jumps out to quick start
Ben Frye enters a wrestling match ready to compete.
“I’m always on the attack,” the Dublin Coffman senior said. “I go into a match ready to go six minutes, even eight if it needs to.”
He looked ready in the preliminary round of the 285-pound bracket in Division I Thursday afternoon at the state wrestling meet at Value City Arena, but he didn’t need six minutes to prove it.
Frye pinned Broadview Heights’ Zach D’Anna in 35 seconds, advancing to a quarterfinal today with Cincinnati Elder’s Alec Moore-Nash. Frye took fourth at 220 last year.
Frye, a Duke football defensive end recruit, has wrestled 46 matches this season without a loss. Not bad for a sport he picked up to help with his body control in football.
“I ended up being good at it, so I stuck with it,” Frye said of wrestling. “It helped with football tremendously and vice- versa. It’s upper body control and fast- twitch muscle fiber, so they go together really well.”
Frye’s goal this season was a state title. An undefeated record would be a nice complement, Frye said, but is secondary.
“The undefeated part came along with it,” he said. “I’m hoping to keep that.”
Davidson’s DiSabato advances
Hilliard Davidson junior Gio DiSabato is wrestling at a new weight class but is approaching the 120pound bracket in Division I like a veteran.
That’s because he’s been in a high- pressure state tournament environment before, having placed in the top six at 106 pounds in each of the last two state tournaments.
“I’m a calm person,” DiSabato said. “I know if I just do my stuff I’m going to come out on top.”
His preliminary round major decision over Deshea Pettiford of Fremont Ross was a controlled one. DiSabato had a 5-0 lead early and easily pushed the margin to 10-2 by match’s end.
“I’ve been working on pushing the pressure, doing my stuff,” he said. “I was really pushing toward (Pettiford) the whole time, just doing my thing on him, and it worked.”
Martinez moves on
Licking Valley’s Jake Martinez has no shortage of motivation in the Division II tournament.
The 138- pounder was a runner- up at Value City Arena last year. He’s also a senior.
“It’s always been my dream to win a high school state title since I was really, really little,” Martinez said. “Getting second last year just made me more hungry, frustrated me, made me work 10 times harder in practices.”
Martinez said he’s stronger and flows better on the mat this season. It showed. He pinned New Richmond’s Ryan Wolf in 1: 14.
Team Doherty shows out
Before and after his preliminary round win over Edgerton’s Jonah Brown in the 160-pound bracket in Division III, West Jefferson senior Josh Doherty wore a shirt emblazoned with the hashtag “TeamDoherty.”
Doherty was upset by Steele Strout of Northridge in the final of the Coshocton district tournament.
A state finalist at 160 last year, he lost to Kaleb Romero of Mechanicsburg by a 15-0 technical fall. As he put it, “Nobody wants to be tech-falled in the state finals.”
For this year’s tournament, he wanted a little extra motivation, so he and his family made matching shirts.
“Me and my family, we’ve always been doubted. I’ve always been doubted. Everyone’s always like, ‘Doherty’s not gonna win it. Doherty’s not gonna win it,’” he said. “This year, we’re trying to prove a point, so everyone’s got 'Team Doherty' on our family shirts. We’ve got it on Twitter, Instagram, everything.”
Doherty (47-2) is trending toward a deep tournament run, needing just 1:49 to pin Brown.