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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- For the first 23 years of the St. Clairsville Americas Best Value Inn wrestling tournament, the hosts had to watch another school celebrate with the championship team trophy on John Jenkins Court.
Saturday night, the Red Devils made it back-to-back team titles as the event celebrated its Silver Anniversary. With four individual champions, St. Clairsville piled up 385.5 points. Martins Ferry and Shenandoah tied for second with 265 markers, which was one better than Warren Local. Southern Local was fifth with 205.
"This one feels better than last year. A lot better because, as a team, we're starting to hit our strides," St. Clairsville coach Joel Sansone said after receiving the team trophy. "These guys came to battle."
Reaching the top step of the podium were Koen Kish (120), Caden Stout (132), Austin DaRe (145) and Derek Witsberger (195). Kish was voted the Delande Brothers Most Outstanding Wrestler by tournament coaches. He won all eight of his matches by first-period pins.
"It's incredible," the sophomore said of the honor. "I attribute it all to hard work in the wrestling room."
Kish, who nearly qualified for the Division II state tournament last winter, improved to 14-1 on the season. The lone setback came in the finals of the prestigious North Canton Holiday Tournament.
Two of the Red Devils' titlists avenged losses in claiming their top prizes. They were Stout and DaRe.
"Both of those guys redeemed themselves against guys they had formerly lost to," Sansone said. "They both came out victorious."
Stout defeated Edison's Hayden Johnson, a state qualifier last winter, while DaRe beat Justin Sarge of Wellsville.
"Those were two really big wins for us," Sansone said "This team title is all part of what we are trying to build here. We've got a young team. We've only got two seniors in the starting lineup. They come every day in the practice room.
"Our motto this year is 'to be better than they were the day before' and they've embraced that. We're hitting our grind and hoping to look halfway to the mountain come OVACs."
St. Clairsville also had a trio of runnersup in senior Justice McCamick (220), who lost in sudden-victory when he was assessed a penalty point for locking hands while on the mat, and junior Reese Skaggs (170) and freshman Gannon Kazmirski (106).
The Purple Riders had a pair of champions in junior Chase Ward (138) and sophomore Chase Goff (160).
"We had a good finish. We were in fourth place all weekend and ended up tying for second," first-year Martins Ferry coach Chad Ware said. "It was a good way to finish the weekend.
"Chase Ward dropped from 145 to 138 and I think it really helped him. He showed a big improvement from our last tournament in Barnesville. He got a lot better and I'm really proud of him.
"We had Chase Goff in junior high and then we missed him for a year last year. Now he came back to us. We knew he was there, but he was unknown to everyone else. he finally showed up."
Finishing second for the Purple Riders were senior Drake Dobson (195) and junior Donte Lewis (285).
Other champions included Shenandoah's Alex Overly (106), Worthington Kilbourne's Spencer Parker-Gordon (113), Warren Local's Peyton Kellar (126) and Trent Sayre (152), Tallamadge's Richie Eyre (170) and Jesse Kanatzar (182), Worthington Kilbourne's Jay Thompson (220) and Nitro's Will Frampton (285).