Let's get physical

When River Valley and Marysville Highs' wrestling teams took to the mat on Wednesday, the theme of the night could've easily been broken down to just a single word — inexperience.

Both the Falcons and the Indians came into Lesta Joubert Gymnasium with extremely green squads and it was that lack of time on the mat that had the two coaches talking after the meet.

"Both teams have a lot of new guys, so there's definitely that inexperience factor," River Valley coach Rob Benton said. "You could tell by watching them that they were pretty inexperienced out there."

Experienced or not, the Falcons showed they had more than enough talent on this evening as they picked up six victories via pin en route to a 54-6 victory.

"We only have one wrestler that has more than two years, the rest are in their first or second season," said Marysville coach Mark Martinez, who took over for James Bond after serving as an assistant for the last four years. "You can drill them, drill them, drill them, but until they do it 500 times it's tough."

River Valley's Conner Wick started the evening with a quick first-period pin in the 189-pound class and was followed by another first-rounder by heavyweight Erik Tejada.

Marysville then forfeited the 103-pound match to give the Falcons an 18-0 lead before Koua Thao got the Indians on the board with a first-round pin of his own.

That would be all the points for Marysville however, as River Valley picked up four more pins and three decisions to take the meet easily.

Bryce Cooper (125), Bryce Tapia (145) and Timmy Webb (152) each won by first-period pins and Garrett Higgins (135) won by pin in the second for River Valley. Tristan Miller (130) won by a 16-1 technical fall and Robert Adamson (160) took a 15-6 decision over a tough Daniel Dewey in the second-to-last match of the night.

But the best duel was saved for last when the Falcons' Christian Magenheimer and the Indians' Michael Barabin locked horns in the 171-pound match.

After a scoreless first period, Magenheimer forged ahead with a near fall and a technical violation by Barabin to take a 4-1 lead into the third. Both grapplers were gassed in the final round, but the taller Magenheimer overcame a takedown by Barabin with 20 seconds left and countered with a reversal to earn a hard-fought 7-3 victory.

"Christian is lanky and Barabin is a strength guy, but I knew that would be the match of the night," Benton said. "I think they're two of the best in the area. It was like those Chavez-Chandless matches from a few years ago."

Marysville won five of the six junior varsity contests with Austin Winona (119), Cameo Stevens (125), Chris Schuy (135), Justin Nygard (152) and Jordan Dean each picking up wins by pin. Miller (130) won by pin for River Valley.