Wrestling Lions fall just shy of comeback win

Jan. 2, 2009

By Isaac Babcock

The Voice

The Lions inched closer to redemption as the seconds gave way to eternity Tuesday night inside the Oviedo High School gym. This was their tournament. College scouts lurked like spies in the audience. All eyes burned through the bull’s eye on the front of sophomore Jay Taylor's jersey. He had to win, or his team would lose. 

The Lions were down by less than three points as Taylor walked onto the mat in the 189-pound championship match. He was their last wrestler of the tournament. Point leader Wentzville Holt High School had one more wrestler to go, and he was the favorite to win. 

Nail biting stopped being an option last year for the Oviedo Lions. Matches have gotten bloodier on the wrestling mats, and scores keep flirting with upending history. 

The Lions won the first five Jarzynka tournaments while simultaneously winning four straight state championships. Last year they were only fifth at their home tournament. Now not even state champions are spared from humility. 

"You have a lot of undefeated guys coming into these matches and leaving with their only loss of the year," Coach J.D. Robbins said. "We had two state champions from Georgia and Florida come into this tournament undefeated, and they were wrestling each other for third and fourth place today."

Last weekend, two by two, wrestlers circled the mat readying to dive into each other and maybe leave with a broken arm in the process. It's getting harder and harder to win the Zac Jarzynka Memorial Ironman Tournament, and Robbins knows it. 

So does most of the country these days, with word of Oviedo's annual holiday wrestling tournament piquing the interest of fighters as far as New York and Oklahoma. 

This year things took a turn for the epic, when the Lions decided that the best high school wrestling teams in the country weren't enough to fill a weekend gauntlet on six mats for 10 straight hours a day. They looked into taking over the Sunshine Wrestling Classic — the only college wrestling tournament in the state. 

Suddenly the phones were ringing off the hook from college teams hoping for a chance to wrestle at a high school. 

"It got big in a hurry," Robbins said. 

They've asked for it. Seven years after starting the first tournament in honor of the fallen Oviedo wrestler who became the tournament's namesake, the tournament has taken on nationwide fame. 

"Every year tougher teams show up," Robbins said. "But that's better for everybody. The competition keeps growing." 

That competition hit a palpable peak somewhere around the time 160-pound Erin O'Dell stepped onto the ring wrapped in all the stealth that a jet-black singlet could afford him. 

He was staring down one of the most menacing looking wrestlers to step onto the mat Tuesday. David Richardson was all muscle, and came out fighting early, throwing O'Dell out of the ring within seconds of the opening whistle. 

O'Dell bided his time, sticking, moving and doing his best impression of Ali's butterfly before coming in for the sting. And that moment happened all at once in a blur of snap motion. O'Dell leapt into Richardson before the crowd could even react, standing his opponent nearly on his head as he pinned his shoulders to the ground in an instant that set fire to a smoldering audience. 

"I just kept on pushing him," O'Dell said. "But I knew he was tired, and that's where I caught him." 

O'Dell calls himself out-of-shape after winning probably the most dramatic match of the tournament. 

"I'm just going to continue to train harder and harder for the state tournament," he said. "Hopefully I'll come out state champ." 

For many, this tournament has already eclipsed state tournament status. Tuesday afternoon there were more state champions in the room than a wrestler about to face them could count on his own hands. 

But after O'Dell's shock win, and teammate Davin Morris' narrow loss in the 171-pound class, tension was building, and it all weighed on Taylor winning — and winning big. 

But as Taylor's match pressed deep into the second period, it was clear nobody was giving up easily. Quickly the score became knotted at 2-2, and just as quickly Taylor watched it slip away in a takedown. All he could do was watch in exhaustion as the clock ticked to zero. 

The Lions would fall just short of a redemptive win, only 4.5 points behind Wentzville Holt's 202. 

"You don't come into this tournament and win by a lot," Robbins said. "This is a tough place to come into and win."

And with the way the tournament is growing, next year looks to be even tougher. 

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