By RICHIE HALL
INDIANAPOLIS – Saturday turned into a fine day for Hamilton County wrestling, as five senior athletes earned top eight places at the IHSAA state finals at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Two of those wrestlers finished as runners-up in their division: Westfield’s Carson Eldred placed second at 120 pounds, while Hamilton Southeastern’s Andrew Irick was the 285-pound runner-up. This marked the first time county wrestlers reached a championship match since Fishers’ Mitch Sliga won back-to-back 195-pound titles in 2012 and 2013.
Both Eldred and Irick were beaten by Cathedral wrestlers in their respective bouts. Eldred took on unbeaten sophomore Zeke Seltzer in the 120 final. Seltzer got a quick takedown in the first period and steadily increased his lead from there.
Eldred finished the season at 42-3 and was the first Shamrocks wrestler to reach a championship match since Lukas Schaeffer got to the 182 final in 2012.
“It feels good,” said Eldred. “I wish I could’ve won my last match, obviously. But I think it’s all kind of worked out. I’ve put in a lot of effort this year and just tried my hardest to win and gave everything I had and that’s all I could do.”
Eldred began his run to the title match with a quarter-final fall over Churubusco senior Dominic Heath, then defeated Wheeler senior Giovanni Diaz in the semi-finals by a 3-1 decision.
Irick probably had the toughest road to the final of anyone at the meet. The senior got past Western junior 3-2 in the quarter-finals, then took on Brownsburg’s Dorian Keys, who was 44-0 coming into the semi-finals. It took double overtime, but Irick won the match 3-2 in an ultimate tiebreak, making an escape to get the win.
That put Irick in the final against Cathedral senior Holden Parsons. After a scoreless first period, both wrestlers got escape points in the next two periods. Thus the score was tied at 1-1 after regulation, so it went to a sudden victory overtime, where Parsons made a takedown to get the win.
Irick finished his season 37-2 and became the first HSE wrestler to make it to a championship match. He later posted a Twitter message saying “Thank you @HSE_wrestling for everything. No other team or program I would have wanted to do it with. I gave it all I have, much love.” Irick has committed to wrestle at Indiana University.
Two more county wrestlers placed third in their weight divisions. Suhas Chundi earned the bronze at 106 pounds and Fishers’ JD Farrell took third at 195.
Chundi won his quarter-final over Crown Point freshman Sammy Goin by a 5-3 decision, but lost to Brownsburg sophomore Logan Miller 4-3 in the semi-finals. In the third-place match, Chundi got a 4-2 decision win over Roncalli freshman Bryce Lowery.
“I think I wrestled all right,” said Chundi, who finished his senior season 39-4. “There were some ups and downs throughout the tournament and for the most part, I did okay recovering from those downs.”
Farrell opened his day with a 7-0 decision over Heritage Hills senior Phoenix Rodgers in the quarter-finals, but fell in the semi-finals to Mishawaka senior Jacob LaPlace by a 4-3 decision; LaPlace was unbeaten going into the finals. Farrell then won the third-place match, 3-1 over Culver Academies junior Eli Pack, getting a takedown in the final few seconds.
Farrell said that before every match he usually has his nerves “on a hundred. But before every match, I put my ankle bands on, I thank God, say a little prayer, and usually the match ends up the way I want it to, the way we need it to.
“The off-season we worked hard, we got things down, we accomplished goals and now we’re here today,” said Farrell, who finished his season 41-3.
Carmel’s Gabe Davin finished eighth at 170 pounds. He dropped his quarter-final match to Plymouth senior Graham Calhoun in a 19-7 major decision, then fell to North Central senior Bradley Harrington by an 8-5 decision in the wrestlebacks and lost an 11-3 major decision to Evansville Mater Dei sophomore Gabe Sollars in the seventh-place match.
Still, it was a good season for Davin, who finished the season 36-7 and called the experience of wrestling at state “unreal.”
“Eighth place isn’t ideal, but being here is a big deal,” said Davin. “I’ve trained almost my entire life to get here, so it’s still a good thing and it still feels great.”
In the team standings, Westfield placed 19th with 20 points, Hamilton Southeastern was 23rd with 18 points, Carmel scored 18 points to take 24th and Fishers scored 13 points to place 30th. Cathedral won the team state championship by scoring 102 points, with Crown Point the runner-up by totaling 93.5 points.
Three wrestlers finished as unbeaten state champions: Seltzer at 120, Roncalli’s Alec Viduya at 145 and Shenandoah’s Silas Allred at 195.
Westfield’s Carson Eldred, shown here during a morning match, finished as the 120-pound runner-up at Saturday’s IHSAA state finals at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Eldred became the first Shamrocks wrestler to reach a championship match since Lukas Schaeffer in 2012. (Kirk Green)
Hamilton Southeastern’s Andrew Irick finished as runner-up at 285 pounds. (Richie Hall)