Warsaw’s lone senior Rory Nolin (center), stands with his parents and grandparents prior to his match Wednesday night.

WARSAW – It was a bag of mixed results for the Warsaw wrestling team on Wednesday night when theTigers welcomed in Northern Lakes Conference foe Plymouth to the Tiger Den.

Warsaw was able to take advantage of its strength position near the front and back end of the lineup, but it was Plymouth that left with a 48-18 victory.

Warsaw won the first three matchups of the evening, starting with Rory Nolin at the 195-pound class. Nolin, the team’s lone senior, was also honored prior to the match s the team celebrated Senior Night.  The lone senior also serves as the team captain and will be one wrestler that will be hard to replace.

“He wrestles tough every night, he is a guy you can depend on every night to go out and get a win,” said Warsaw head coach Justin Smith of Nolin. “The younger kids look up to him, he works hard. He is one of our captains and he embodies that. He embraces being the captain and he goes out there and shows our other guys why he is the team captain.

“He had a tough match tonight but he kept wrestling and got that takedown at the end to secure the win. It’s always nice to see your senior get a win on Senior Night.”

Nolin defeated Plymouth’s Jacob LaFree 4-2 to remain undefeated this season.

Rory Nolin

Warsaw’s Andrew Brock followed in Nolin’s footsteps by defeating Chaz Scruggs at 220. Anthony Penn then gave Warsaw a 12-0 advantage after pinning Tyler Milton in the heavyweight slot. Plymouth picked up its first points of the night via forfeit with Jeffrey Oliver at 106.

Zac DeVault won by fall at 113 over Warsaw’s Alec Hammel to even the score up, 12-12. Warsaw’s Kyle Hatch won by fall at 120 to give the Tigers an 18-12 lead, but that would be the last victory Warsaw would see Wednesday night.

“We’re still trying to get our lineup set, we have a lot of guys still moving around but we battled tonight,” began Plymouth head coach Bob Read. “Warsaw has a lot of tough kids, we got a huge win at 145, that was big for us. We were able to put a few of their guys in tough positions and then at the end we had our seniors come through for us. You always have to have that, if you don’t have your seniors coming through then you’re in trouble.

“I don’t know if we’re the most talented team, but our kids work like crazy and they find ways to get the job done. That’s always a positive.”

Plymouth was able to win the final eight matches of the night, including Micah Calhoun’s win at 145 that Read talked about. Calhoun battled with Spencer Gareiss tough and would pull out a 3-0 win.

Jeremy Spliz

Bodie Neidig defeated Francisco Ramirez via tech fall at 152. Colten Schuler, Marcos Rodriguez and Jeremy Spliz all won by fall in the first period against their Warsaw opponents to close out the victory for the Rockies.

“I think our boys wrestled well tonight overall,” said Smith. “Our strength is in some of our heavier guys and then in our lower weight classes. We matched up well there and Plymouth has some talented guys in the middle of their lineup and we had some younger kids that are still adjusting to wrestling varsity.

“The team score, that’s not what matters to me at the end of the day. It’s about how hard they wrestle and I think we have a lot of positives, a lot we still need to work on, but still plenty of positives.”

Warsaw’s varsity squad will have until next Saturday (12/20) to work on things when they travel to Granger for the Penn Invitational. The Tigers are now 7-5 on the season and 2-2 in NLC contests.

Three junior varsity contests were held prior to the varsity match. Warsaw’s Riley Hogensen won 6-2 at the 126-pound contest over Gavin Banks. Christian Taylor claimed a 4-1 victory for Warsaw over Garrett May and Nate LaFree of Plymouth was winner by fall over Warsaw’s Brandon Bradley.

Warsaw’s JV wrestlers will participate in the North Miami Invite this Saturday.