photo by: Kim North

Wheeling Central’s Isaac Martin controls Steubenville’s Beau Hudson during their championship bout Saturday night at the Rick Link Union Local Invitational in Morristown. Martin won, 6-1.

MORRISTOWN — Union Local is ranked No. 6 in the Ohio Division III preseason wrestling poll. The Jets showed why Saturday.

Head coach Nate Starkey’s squad crowned four individual champions in finishing as runnersup to Parkersburg in the team race during Saturday’s season-opening Rick Link Union Local Invitational wrestling tournament inside “The Hangar” on the Union Local campus.

Winning titles were Gamble Gossett (126), Gunnar Gossett (165), Brody Perzanowski (190) and Kolten Snyder (215).

“Four-for-four is pretty good,” Starkey said of the championship round. “We’re in the right spot. Our guys are working hard.”

Gunnar Gossett, who finished as a state runnerup last winter in the Division III state championships, was named the event’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. The junior was one of three wrestlers who defended their 2024 titles. He posted an impressive 15-0 technical fall over Parkersburg’s Parker Woods in the finals to record his 100th career win.

Gossett’s younger brother, Gamble, also recorded a technical fall – 17-0 over Huntington’s Trevor Morgan, while Perzanowski pinned Huntington’s Rowan Dunham in 1:15 and Snyder, a transfer from Meadowbrook, decisioned Martins Ferry’s Tayson Palmer, 8-1.

“Props to our wrestlers,” Starkey added. “They’re not just going out to win matches. They are looking to get bonus points in every match. That’s how we do these things.”

The Jets finished with 375 points. Martins Ferry and Steubenville tied for third with 368 each, while Huntington rounded out the top 5 with 313.

Other local champions included Martins Ferry’s Jayce Nixon (113); Steubenville’s Landon Crosier (175) and Wheeling Central’s Issac Martin (285).

Nixon pinned Parkersburg’s Austin Carrodus in 3:48, while Crosier won by major decision, 13-1, over Waynesburg’s Ky-Mani Sumpter and Martin prevailed, 6-1, over Steubenville’s Beau Hudson. Martin won the OVAC and W.Va. state titles last winter.

Parkersburg won the team title with seven champions and 441 points. Its titlists were Aiden Linko (106); Seth Drennen (120); C.J. Carrodus (132); Stephen Myers (138); Colston Skeen (144); Kayden Macdonald (150) and Dominic Way (157). Drennen and Macdonald repeated titles from 2024.

“Parkersburg is a really tough team,” Starkey noted. “That’s a big school with a lot of power, but we hung in there for a while.”

As for being ranked sixth heading into the season, Starkey said that is a strange feeling, but it doesn’t mean anything right now.

“It’s not a distraction at all, but it is a weird spot because we’ve always been the underdogs,” he stressed. “Now there’s a lot of parity at the top, but we don’t even think about that (the ranking). All we care about is getting better every day. The ranking means nothing. It doesn’t get me end-of-the-year results.”