SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP — Few area wrestlers have endured the kind of disappointment Madison’s Matt Turek has over the past two seasons.

Each of those seasons, the Blue Streaks’ 119-pound veteran came up just one victory short of qualifying for the Division I state tournament. This year he lost the match that would have sent him to Columbus on a much-debated 5-3 decision.

So he came to the 12th annual Star Beacon-Mike Scully Senior Classic at Lakeside High School on Friday looking for at least some manner of putting a more satisfying conclusion on his high school career. He got the opportunity in a match with Edgewood’s Thomas Butryn, who placed sixth at 125 pounds in this year’s Division II state tournament, was set up.

It turned out to be a classic battle, too, with the lead changing hands three times. Eventually, Turek prevailed for a 4-3 victory, making an escape in the third period stand up.

“(Friday’s win) was very meaningful to me,” Turek said. “Knowing I was just one match away from going to state has really hurt. It was a very good match. (Butryn) is a very good wrestler.

“I feel I got some redemption. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely over not getting to state. But I’ve realized that I was in a real strong weight class both years.”

The two weeks since his major disappointment have given Turek the chance to recover a bit and reflect on what the sport means to him. It’s even made him a bit philosophical.

“There have times when I thought (not getting to state) was the end of the world, but then I remember there’s college wrestling out there and I feel better about it,” he said. “I definitely plan on wrestling in college. I’m looking at several schools right now, mainly Heidelberg and Limestone (in North Carolina).”

He already feels driven to rise above his high-school disappointments and use them as fuel for even bigger things in college.

“I’m really determined to make something happen in college,” Turek said. “I’m kind of looking at tonight’s match as a launching pad to my college career, more than my last high-school match. I’m pretty pleased how things went tonight.”



Double duty

One of the developments that often occurs at the Scully Classic is the need for some wrestlers to compete in two matches so that everyone gets some mat time. It happened this year to Jefferson’s Keegan Maple and Lakeside’s Bobby Ledenican.

Even though they had lost a lot of their conditioning and, at least in Maple’s case, weighed quite a bit more than he had during the season, they actually seemed to relish the opportunity to go twice. Rather than wrestle the six-minute match normally used in high school, they each wrestled a pair of four-and-a-half minute matches.

For Ledenican, who suffered a major disappointment in postseason when a bus scheduled to take the Dragons to Austintown Fitch for the second day of the Division I sectional tournament arrived to pick them up late, Friday’s match was a welcome opportunity. He got to the tournament too late to wrestle and dropped out of the tournament.

“I was so happy to get the chance to wrestle twice tonight,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to wrestle two matches, but I’m sure glad I did.”

He fared quite well, too, defeating Edgewood’s Stephen Ball, 12-6, in the penultimate match after losing a 4-0 decision to Geneva’s Cody Williams in the second match of the night.

“It wasn’t a problem,” Ledenican said. “It wasn’t that tough. I should have won both of them. It was nice to wrestle twice because I had really been looking at getting to district this year.”

Maple started and finished the Scully Classic. He and Madison’s Josh Burr engaged in quite a battle in the opener before Burr prevailed in overtime, 13-9. He lost an 8-3 decision to Pymatuning Valley’s Jacob Brown in the last match of the evening.

He didn’t seem to mind the extra work, either.

“It was a lot of fun,” Maple said. “It really wasn’t that tough. I came here worried that I wasn’t even going to get a match, so I was real happy to get two. I lost both of them, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”



Love those seats

For several years, Edgewood head wrestling coach Greg Stolfer has donated a set of Adirondack oak love seats as a fundraiser for the Scully Classic that has been fashioned by his woodshop class. He really had to be pleased with this year’s winners, chosen by little D.W. Fritz, son of Geneva head coach Dwight Fritz.

The winner was Michelle Cleveland, wife of Stolfer’s wrestling assistant at Edgewood, Wes Cleveland. She finally won the big prize after trying for a long time.

“I’ve been trying to win these for years,” she said with a big smile. “A couple people came over to me and said they thought the fix was in this year.”

The Clevelands have just the spot to utilize their new outdoor furniture.

“We just built a new porch this year,” Wes Cleveland said. “They’re going to look real good out there.”

At first, it looked like the Clevelands were going to need to rely upon Stolfer to deliver the prize to their home, but another party came to the rescue.

“(Edgewood wrestler) Danny Reed’s father, Tim, is taking them to our house,” Michelle Cleveland said. “We don’t have a truck, but he lives just a couple miles down the road from us and he was nice enough to agree to deliver them for us.”

It probably was a good thing the assignment didn’t fall to Stolfer.

“I had a little incident getting them here,” he said with a smile, while declining to state what that incident was.”