Nick Captures A Jr. High State Championship---Part 4

An OAC Jr. High State Championship Is Won By Nick Kiussis

An Epic Battle Takes Place At 120 lbs.

When Nick was in Eighth Grade the toughest OAC District to place in was undoubtedly the Brecksville District. So when it was time for the district tournament, and especially since we lived within a half hour of Brecksville High School where it was located, that is where we decided to compete. Some of the wrestling dads that I know use to wrestle their sons at the other districts where they felt their sons had a better chance of winning or placing higher to secure a higher seeding in the state tournament. I did not feel the need to strategize in that way.

My feelings were correct as Nick went 5-0 to become the District Champion in a 32 man bracket. He pinned opponents Nathan Beaver, Luis Roman, & Brad Holmgren all rather quickly. He then went on to techfall Wadsworths Connor Clark 15-0 in the Semi-Finals to advance to face Joseph Koontz from Akron Wrestling Club in the Finals.

Heading into the match against Koontz we felt pretty confident that if Nicky was focused and kept his mistakes to a minimum he wouldn't be in any real danger as we faced Koontz a few times before and thus were pretty familiar with him.  That proved to be the case as Nick won by decision 5-1.  Koontz was game, a tough kid, but Nick looked sharp and controlled the match in all positions from start to finish.

Here's a picture of Nick posing with his buddy and future Walsh Jesuit State Champion and 3X State Placer Matt Fields, who also placed at the very competitive Brecksville Tournament.

Here's Nick with 108 lb. District Champion Antwon Pugh.

And a shot of Nick up on the podium and at home. Notice the banner concerning Saving Olympic Wrestling. Very proud of how the wrestling community throughout the country protested the decision of the Olympic Committee to drop the oldest Olympic sport from the games.  I'll never understand how they could even be considering that!

On March 9th 2013 the OAC Jr. High State Tournament began at the Covelli Center in Youngstown Ohio. Nick felt great going into the tournament and so did I and his corner coach Mike Heil. Nick was officially wrestling under the Brecksville Wrestling Club but since we were going to Brunswick High and considering the facts that 1) Mike Heil was assistant head coach at Brunswick, and more importantly 2) Mike knew Nick's wrestling better than anyone! At the most important tournament to this point of his life, we definitely felt it was in Nick's best interest to have Mike there.

Nick wrestled GREAT! Came out strong and, like the District tournament, pinned his first 3 opponents: Justin Mason, Tyler Speelman, and Alex Neuberger. Mike Heil was running late and the Quarter Finals match was early in the morning.  Nick got a little sloppy against Neuberger and went down in points 4-0 but, both of us (I was corner coaching him in Mike's absence) remained calm and knew he could turn things around quickly. Which he did.

This led to a Semi-Finals match the next day against his Brecksville Club teammate Trey Crockett. To be honest we felt that Chandler Golic, who Nick lost to in the beginning of the season at the Claymont Invitational, would be there, but Trey pulled off the upset. Although Trey and Nick were club teammates and friends, Nick focused and took care of business defeating Trey by major decision 12-4.

Of course Cory Shie, the future stud for LaSalle High, came out of the other side of the bracket.  They hadn't met up since Corey handed Nicky a lost at the Super 32.  If you don't remember from a previous post, Corey defeated Nick by a score of 3-2 in double overtime.  That first match was great and we absolutely knew that to win this Jr. High State Championship it was going to be an all out war!  Shie was well traveled and as battle tested as they come with a great support system behind him as well as a terrific club team to which he belonged. 

As a side note this would be the last time Corey and Nick would wrestle each other as they went into different weight classes. Corey had a stellar high school career, being a perennial State Placer, Fargo All American in both Greco and Freestyle, and Champion of many tough tournaments. If I recall correctly he is the only wrestler to win the tough Top Gun tournament 4 years in a row. Corey's a great young man who is attending and wrestling for West Point now.

They had a great, very exciting match!  They put on a real show and the match was broadcast live on the internet by FloWrestling.  Just goes to show Ohio wrestling is no joke! Even in Jr. High! They had a back and forth barnyard brawl with tons of scrambling that prompted the commentator to say that they "look like two T-shirts in a dryer!" 

The match, like their first one, went into overtime. Shie locked up a cradle but Nicky avoided being turned and there wasn't enough control for it to be considered a take down.  It would be something that came to be a hallmark move for Nick throughout his high school wrestling career. As they were wrestling for the take down Nick was able to gain enough position to throw a leg in and the refs awarded Nick the two points for the take down and with that he won a Jr. High State Championship! That match will always be a very memorable one for me as I knew that with a victory over such a great wrestler as Shie, Nick was bound to take a renewed sense of confidence with him into high school.

Here's the video of the match:

I cannot express how proud we were of Nick. He put in a lot of work and determination to get to this point and he deserved to be on the top of that podium. Here's a few pictures immediately following the tournament:

Podium shots: One is with Mike Heil awarding the State Placers with their medals around their necks and one is of his son Dean walking the medals to his dad. Dean Heil was fresh off his Senior year of wrestling for St. Ed's and securing his 4th high school State Championship.  He then went on to have an illustrious career at Oklahoma State wrestling for the great John Smith and winning two National Championships and becoming a 3X All American!

Here's a couple with Coach, dad and Mom (his biggest fan) Dean, his friends Stan Bleich and Antwon Pugh, who won the 108 lb. State Championship a few matches before.

All in all Jr. High was quite the experience for our family. Nick was heading in the right direction and Pam, Kevin and I were all excited to support him as he went into high school.  We would soon be wrestling for Head Coach Mike Koshar and the Brunswick Blue Devils.  Many adventures lied ahead! Thanks for taking the time to read this. Sorry it took so long to get back to this. Many times as we know life gets away from us a bit.  I'll definitely try to put out a few installments..hopefully conclude his high school career much sooner!  Take care.  

Nick Captures A Jr. High State Championship---Part 2

The Talent In Ohio Wrestling Runs Deep

The Preseason Arrives...Along With A Few New Adversaries

The talent in Ohio wrestling runs deep. Very deep. Every year kids change weight classes due to the fact that they're growing up, and with the changes in weight classes come new opponents to face and compete against. We would encounter another great Ohio wrestler on a preseason trip down to the Super 32. 

Nick (we'll be calling him Nick from this point on) was looking very strong down on his trips to Tom Roehlig's. He was training regulary with a solid high school kid named Hunter Pizzone (who now wrestles for Heidelberg University) and looked very good. Definitely could easily mistake him for a high school wrestler. I remember quite vividly one time seeing a look of surprise come over Ivan McClay's face when they were wrestling and when I spoke with Ivan he said that Nick "got a lot better...was a lot tougher...and wasn't falling for the things he used to." This was just a few weeks before our trip to the Super 32.

The Super 32 is the premier national folkstyle wrestling event for high school. It's an absolute meat grinder for the high school division and a great way to see the up and coming talent in the junior high division. It takes place in the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center in Greensboro North Carolina, and wrestlers come from all over the country.

Nick opened up the tournament on fire with a pin and then a 16-0 tech fall over North Allegheny wrestler Jake Woodley. Jake would go on to become a 2X PA State Champ in high school. In the Quarter Finals he met up with another talented and accomplished Ohio wrestler, Corey Shie from the Cincinnati area who was wrestling out of the Golden Cross Wrestling Club. 

You can put Corey right up there with all the other great Ohio youth wrestlers that I discussed while covering Nick's youth career. From 2007-2011 he was a perennial state placer...a three time State Finalist...and a two time State Champion. They had a great match, but Nick came up short losing a decision in double overtime 3-2. Here's that match.   

In the first round of the consi's Nick lost 1-0 to Louie Deprez from Hilton New York. Deprez would go on to become a 3 time New York State Champ. To give you more of an idea of just how competitive and tough a tournament the Super 32 is, by the time these guys were seniors Woodley was ranked 3rd in his weight class (195), Deprez was ranked 1st (182), Shie was ranked 15th (138), and Nick was ranked number 10 (160)...nationally...by InterMat. Here's Nick's match against Deprez. Definitely a winnable match against a tough kid. 





The regular season was a blast for Nick. For the most part he was with the Brecksville Club, but practiced out of Brunswick's room. The main reason for this was that in the very beginning of the season, when they were wrestling live together at Brecksville, Luke Strnad broke his finger. It was a bad break that eventually required a surgery because it didn't run across the bone, but rather ran vertical along the bone. 

We didn't know it at the time but it would cost him the entire season. It's too bad because Luke would have more than likely been in the Finals against Kaleb Romero. Kaleb was an extraordinary youth and junior high wrestler who had never lost a State Finals match in youth or even 7th grade. He would end up being a 4 time high school State Champion for Mechanicsburg and signed with the Ohio State Buckeyes. A Luke and Kaleb's match would have been fun to watch.

My friend Todd Assad boys, Aaron and Austin, would sometimes be in the Brecksville room and would wrestle with Nicky, but not nearly enough to warrant going there all the time, and to be honest there wasn't anybody Nick'y age who was really on the same level as him. Heck once Nick was wrestling with one of the Brecksville Club coaches, Ryan Marks, and hit a nasty Twister on him...putting him to his back!  Believe me...Ryan Marks was trying too. Did it right in front of where I was sitting. Looked up at me and winked. I liked that. 

Brecksville Club had an aggressive tournament schedule and I knew that I could fill in the gaps for tournaments when they didn't have anything to attend. So that's what we did. And of course Nick would travel with the TWC boys to the good tournaments that Mike Heil would be coaching at. Coach Heil always liked those tough PA tournament. 

Nick opened up the season with Brecksville Club at the Claymont Invitational. Claymont is a Division 2 high school and they always do a great job of developing their boys. They have a kick ass atmosphere to wrestle in also. Nick pinned his first opponent in the way that most opponents fared against him at this point...unless they were really good.  
   



Nick then wrestled Claymont's Chandler Golic. Nick lost 8-7 in what I can only express as a total homer ref called match. Sorry I can't show the video.  It was all over the damn place and I was yelling too damn much! We looked forward to possibly meeting up with Chandler at some point in a more neutral environment lol! But now Chandler was on our radar as well. We knew Chandler from before...he was one weight class heavier than Nick before and placed 2nd in the 100 lb. weight class at OYWA states. 

The rest of the tournament went as expected.  Nick placed third. Pinned everyone there except Chandler. Here's another short match: 




Nick then went on a nice little run through some very good tournaments. He traveled up to the Border Wars Duals in Battle Creek Michigan and pinned all his opponents. One from Indiana, one from Michigan, one from Illinois, and two from Ohio. Because of this outstanding performance he won the Outstanding Wrestler award and a nice plaque to add to his already impressive bling collection.  

He then attended the Cleveland State Duals and pinned his way through.  Here's his Semi-Finals match against a Burnett Trained wrestler:
  



And here he is in the Finals match against a Massillon Perry Club opponent:





Next was to Nick's soon to be high school!  Had to show off in front of his soon to be high school coach Mike Koshar.  He just made short work outta kids here in the first couple rounds with his Twister. He loved that in Jr. High school. The last State Champ from Brunswick was also in the crowd watching Nick...Richie Spicel:








And here's his Finals match...Blue Devils baby! Go Big Blue! You can hear Coach Koshar coaching him in the match. Just the beginning between these two.




I'm going to have to wrap this post up right here. Nick wrestled a lot his 8th grade year so I'm going to have to break it up a bit. I'll cover the other regular season tournaments in my next installment. Eighth grade was a lot of fun. Top of the food chain again and it was always exciting going to a tournament and wondering if a top notch wrestler would be there so we could watch Nicky wrestle in a really tough, competitive match. There are a few tournaments coming where Nick would definitely run into some hammers. I'll be happy to share those with you in the next post. Until then...take care.