Jefferson Junior High School students Joey Baitt and Evan Francis are preparing to compete in the 11th annual Ohio Athletic Committee Junior High State Wrestling Championships.
The tournament is being held Saturday and Sunday at the Marion County Memorial Coliseum in Marion.
The OAC State Championships is the first of its kind, and was heralded in WIN Magazine, one of the foremost national wrestling magazines, which covers high school, college, and world and Olympic wrestling, as “groundbreaking and innovative, a chance to showcase the best junior high wrestlers in one of the best wrestling states in the country.”
The participants must qualify from one of eight district sites throughout the state, with the top six finishers at each weight class earning a chance at a state championship. Unlike the high school state championships, where competition is broken into Division I, II and III, based on school size, this tournament is a one-division competition, producing a single champion and place winners.
Wrestling action begins Saturday at 10 a.m., with three rounds of championship matches taking place. Action resumes Sunday at 8 a.m., beginning with consolation matches; quarterfinals will start at 10 a.m.
Baitt is the son of Jim and Lisa Baitt.
Francis is the son of Scott and Melinda Francis.
Baitt, a state place winner last year at 84 pounds, looked impressive in claiming a district title at Brecksville in the 96-pound weight class. After pinning his first three opponents to reach the semifinals, the eighth grader then produced two tough wins, a 5-3 victory over George Archer, and a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Brad Taton from Lake Catholic, in the finals. The victory over Taton was the second in two years, as the two wrestlers met in the 2009 state tournament, where Baitt prevailed, 7-2, guaranteeing the Jefferson standout a top-eight finish.
As a returning state placer, Baitt is one of the favorites at his weight class this year. Sporting a 38-1 record and winning every school tournament he has entered in the past two years (OAC is not affiliated with the OHSAA and school functions), he is considered one of the finest junior-high wrestlers in the state.
At his weight are four returning state placers from 2009, featured by last year’s 84-pound runner-up, Austin Reese. His first challenge will appear in the quarterfinals, where he will most likely face the Stuebenville district champion, Anthony Tutulo, who finished seventh at Marion in 2009 at 78 pounds.
Francis, a seventh grader at Jefferson, who wrestled 92 throughout the year for the Falcons, qualified fourth out of the tough Brecksville district, in the 90-pound weight class. He opened the tournament with a win by fall, but dropped his second-round match to Conner Gray — who went on to finish as the runner-up in the weight class — by a tight 6-5 decision. The Falcon then won his next five bouts, including a fall and two major decisions, before bowing to Joey Gallagher of from Mentor, by decision, to finish fourth.
In his first trip to the tournament, Francis will arrive in Marion with a season record of 24-7. He will open the state tournament against Brandon Bable, a seventh grader from Beach City, who was a fifth-place finisher at the Stuebenville district.
A win there would likely pit him against the Bowling Green district champion Garrett Carter, a seventh grader from Northfield. Similar to Baitt, Francis has four returning state placers at this weight, including David Bavery, the state runner-up, at 78 pounds, in 2009.
For tickets and more information, go to www.ohioathletics.com.
