Staff photo / Preston Byers Columbiana's Jensen Nordquist (left) and Girard's Tucker Steiner square each other up during their first-round match at the Eastern Ohio Wrestling tournament Friday in Austintown

AUSTINTOWN — The annual Eastern Ohio Wrestling League (EOWL) tournament returned Friday to Austintown Fitch, where hundreds of wrestlers from a record 29 teams around Northeast Ohio competed in one of the toughest events in the area.

With so many wrestlers, coaches and fans in the jam-packed Fitch gymnasium, as well as about half of a dozen mats to focus on, the scene exuded chaos.

Some coaches, immediately after the conclusion of one match, would race to a nearby mat to offer similar instructions to another wrestler. Some wrestlers, unaware when or where their match was set to begin, would seemingly emerge out of nowhere, take off their warmups and step on the mat just moments before the action started.

Organization, as is the case with most tournaments, is the key to success for the competitors and their coaches – and having plenty of the latter always helps too.

“Thankfully, we have three different coaches that can move from mat to mat,” Brookfield head coach John Kettler said.

The true saving grace, though, is Trackwrestling.com, which multiple coaches praised for its usefulness in keeping track of their wrestlers’ upcoming matches and mat assignments. Poland head coach Jordan Beadle said one of his coaches’ jobs was to follow the bout board and relay the information to the wrestlers.

“Trackwrestling is really nice because it tells you when they’re coming up in three matches,” Kettler said. “So we can try to plan and separate so we have a coach over there, and [I can] be ready to coach this one over here.”

Still, the coaches got their exercise in.

“[We’re] just trying to keep the kids under control, and they’re worrying about themselves,” South Range coach Frank Giordano said. “And their warm-up is the biggest part of it. They know they have to get warmed up where they’re supposed to be.

“And then we’re running – the coaches are doing the chaos, running all over the place.”

IRON SHARPENS IRON

In the “Art of War,” Sun Tzu said, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

For the hundreds of wrestlers, the opportunity at the EOWL tournament is not just to win, but possibly more importantly, to get better.

“We’re D-III, so we’re just one of the smaller schools here,” Kettler said. “This is comparable to our district [tournament], so it blows our sectionals out of the water. The competition that’s here, this is our hardest tournament of the year.”

Even for a Division I team like Austintown Fitch, one of the largest schools in the area, the EOWL serves as a great test and proving ground for the postseason.

“What’s great about wrestling is you want to be in these intense environments. The more times you’re in it, the better you are for when the end of the year comes,” Fitch head coach John Burd said.

Burd also said that the lessons that can be learned at a tournament like the EOWL are not exclusive to mat skills.

“It’s just preparing you for that district tournament at the end of the year,” Burd said. “Wrestling through that 16-man bracket, especially learning – the number one thing kids need to learn, I feel, is how to recover from a loss. So in these environments, if you have a tough match and you fall and lose your back, you got to be able to rebound and come back through.

“That’s the same thing that happens when you get to district tournament. You gotta be able to recover after a tough loss sometimes. And that’s what you’re preparing these kids [in] these environments.”

While he did not lose Friday, Devin Phillips, Fitch’s 190-pound senior received praise from his coach for the way he dealt with an ill-fitting second-round matchup.

“He had a really tough opponent there from Louisville, and we found a way to continue to move through it and win different positions. The kids, like I said, put us in some positions we’re not that great in, and we found ways to still score and get out of that.”

Phillips was among the wrestlers who earned their 100th career victory Friday; South Range’s Tyson Seesholtz similarly hit triple digits in Austintown.

SEMIFINAL MATCHUPS

Matches resume at 9 a.m. today. Consolation matches will kick off the day. The semifinals of each weight class will follow.

106: Justuce Fisher (Beaver Local) vs. Chayce Kemble (Austintown Fitch); Cain Mlinarsik (Canfield) vs. Joey Klimenko (Girard).

113: Frank Quinlan (Boardman) vs. Logan Balla (Hubbard); Tyler German (Salem) vs. Xavier Pollard (Louisville).

120: Colton Rhoads (Louisville) vs. Dominick Jezek (Salem); Markel Hackwelder (Hubbard) vs. Quinn Gaca (Canfield).

126: Aiden Bean (Marlington) vs. Luke Kaufman (Garrettsville Garfield); Dalton Braybon (Waterloo) vs. Dominic Kemble (Southeast).

132: Kaiden Barker (Louisville) vs. Luke Stanley (Marlington); Aidan O’Donnell (Howland) vs. Kayden Welker (South Range).

138: Bobby Buchheit (Beaver Local) vs. Jakob DeLuca (Poland); Aric Criss (Louisville) vs. Tyler Scharrer (Canfield).

144: John Beltz (Alliance) vs. Beau Nezbeth (Louisville); Trevor McElhaney (Crestview) vs. Joey Kana (Salem).

150: Tyson Seesholtz (South Range) vs. Dylan Kick (Chardon); Santino Slipkovic (Boardman) vs. Shawn German (Salem).

157: Alex Ash (Chardon) vs. Jake Hughes (Beaver Local); Edward Stachowicz (South Range) vs. Abel Bolyard (Louisville).

165: Tyson Clear (Malvern) vs. Logan Shubert (Chardon); Evan Ours (Beaver Local) vs. Quinn Callock (Alliance).

175: Aiden Stecker (Salem) vs. Roman Albert (Marlington); Tucker Steiner (Girard) vs. Alex Hackwelder (Hubbard).

190: Johnny Bailey (Southern Local) vs. Devin Phillips (Austintown Fitch); Christopher Mijavec (Howland) vs. Gabriel Miller (Canfield).

215: Jakeb Beard (Louisville) vs. Ayden Patchin (Salem); Gavin Hang (West Branch) vs. Owen Dreher (Howland).

285: Aiden Hardesty (Chardon) vs. Donte Pipkins (Salem); Cole Capelli (Jackson-Milton) vs. Noah Bolen (Austintown Fitch).