Rory Nolin sizes up Plymouth’s Jacob LaFree before defeating him in Saturday’s 195-pound championship. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

GOSHEN – The Tigers were terrific Saturday afternoon. The Warsaw wrestling team left Goshen High School with three conference champions at the annual Northern Lakes Conference tournament.

“I talked with Dan Hatch, our assistant, yesterday and we said we would like to have four in the finals today,” began a very pleased Justin Smith, Warsaw’s head coach. “We also wanted a two or three guys wrestling for third and a few for fifth. That’s the way it shook out today and we are very happy with that. Three champions? That’s always a good day.”

Kyle Hatch was the first Tiger to bring home a title as he dominated the competition in the 120-pound class. The sophomore started by taking a forfeit in the first round the won by fall over Concord’s Luis Ortiz in the semi-finals. In the title match Hatch had no problems with a familiar foe, Elkhart Memorial’s Marcus Mejia.

Anthony Penn goes beat mode on Plymouth’s Tyler Milton during the heavyweight title match.

Mejia only had four losses entering Saturday’s conference tournament, two of which came from Hatch. Warsaw’s young stud took care of business for the third time over Mejia with a tech fall (19-2) to claim the conference title. Hatch is now 32-1 on the season.

Warsaw was represented at the top of the podium a little later by Rory Nolin. The team’s lone senior ended his NLC career by defeating Plymouth’s Jacob LaFree with a 13-3 major decision in the 195-pound championship.

“It’s great to see your only senior do what Rory (Nolin) did here today,” Smith remarked. “He wrestled a tremendous final match against LaFree. He was in control of the match the whole time and just working his offense the whole time. That is going to give him a ton of confidence going into the sectional.”

What helped the Warsaw senior take down the competition during Saturday’s meet? Well, takedowns.

Andrew Brock claimed fourth place in the 220-pound bracket for the Tigers.

“Definitely my takedowns,” a relieved Nolin said when asked what was working best for him at the meet. “I was kind of nervous because the last time LaFree and I wrestled it came down to a last-second takedown. I’ve been working on my offense the last couple of weeks and my takedowns were just working today.”

Nolin improves his record to 30-3 in 2014-15.

The final match of the day gave Warsaw its final champion of the day. Anthony Penn went 3-0 Saturday to earn first place in the 285-pound bracket. Penn won by fall over all three of his opponents, including Plymouth’s Tyler Milton in the title match. Penn is now 22-7 on the season.

Spencer Gareiss claimed second place in the 160-pound bracket, only losing to Marcos Rodriguez of Plymouth in the title. Jeremy Lee claimed third at 132. Andrew Brock (220-pound) and Danny Gonzalez (113-pound) both claimed fourth in their respective weight classes.

Hatch, Nolin and Penn all earned all-NLC honors with their championships. Elkhart Memorial won the team title for the 13th time in the last 14 years.

Warsaw will compete in the Plymouth Sectional next Saturday