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Golden Bears Continue Upward Trajectory With Win Over Park On Patriots’ Senior Night

By NICK HENTHORN 4 min read

WHEELING - It was senior night for the Wheeling Park Patriots on Wednesday evening, though the visiting Oak Glen Golden Bears were in no mood to celebrate.

Park recognized the careers of Carter Duncil, Chance Funari and Abbie Leindecker in Park's final home meet of the season, though a hobbled Patriots team lost to the Golden Bears 51-25.

For Wheeling Park's seniors, Duncil won his match on a 7-5 decision at 126, while Chance Funari polished off a major decision at 160, 14-5.

"They're all three special to this program," Wheeling Park head coach Brian Leggett said of Duncil, Funari and Leindecker. "We're really big on investment and buying-in, and all three are examples of that. All three of them wrestled very well for us tonight, we had some good wins tonight, happy to send them off in their final dual meet doing that."

The visiting Bears, meanwhile, continue to stack wins with a group that Oak Glen head coach Josh Cornell says is steadily improving.

"We've been seeing a lot of improvement throughout the year," he said. "We lost a couple close duals to start the year and now I think we've won six, seven duals in a row. We're definitely progressing in the right direction. We took second at [last weekend's Cameron Invitational], so we're making steps toward the end goal for us."

The final score also reflected multiple forfeits by Park, while Oak Glen forfeited one match. Leggett said his team is still trying to get everyone healthy, as several players were injured or sick Wednesday.

"It's been an unusual year for us," Leggettt said. "We haven't been at full strength all year, and still not tonight, but these guys keep their heads down, keep working and keep believing in the system. Guys like Jameson going out there getting a pin, Hunter Means getting a pin, those guys have been stalwarts in our lineup, they've been doing that time after time and it's really big for us."

Oak Glen's Logan Davis pinned Park's Jacob Carman in the second period of the day's first match, at which point Oak Glen already had a 12-0 lead after two forfeits, the bout putting the Golden Bears ahead 18-0.

Duncil worked a decision to get Park on the board, and the Golden Bears' Hayden Lamb pinned the Patriot's Abbie Leindecker to extend the point lead for the visitors.

Logan Graham pulled off a third period pin against Park's Nate Hodge at 138, and Oak Glen's Michael Heath finished with a 5-2 decision over Noah White at 150 to continue a good day for the Golden Bears.

Funari racked up points against Oak Glen's Ethan Haenke for his major decision at 160, and Wheeling Park continued to battle back at 175 as Park's Jameson Maynard pinned Oak Glen's Anthony Burt in the first period.

Oak Glen won the next two matches, Greg Sauers pinning Park's Malachi Washington in the third period at 190 and Waylon Courtwright pinning Park's Quentin Scott in the second period at 215.

The heavyweight wrapped up the night with a Patriots pin, Hunter Means pinning Noah Schmidt in the second period.

Wednesday's results should affect the seeding for the upcoming OVAC Wrestling Tournament, set to invade WesBanco Arena on Jan. 18, 19 and 20.

"I thought we wrestled pretty well overall," Cornell said.

"Three guys stood out to me. We had three big wins where they were ranked ahead of us. At 190, Greg Sauers got a big win, at 215 Waylon Courtwright and then at 150 Michael Heath, they all got wins over kids who were ranked ahead of us for the OVACs. We've got OVACs next week so big wins there for the seeding."

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