Geremia Brooks controls jimtown’s Matt Gimson late in the 132-pound championship of the Al Smith Classic Saturday. (Photos by James Costello)

MISHAWAKA — After an outstanding showing on day one of the Al Smith Classic, the Warriors were sitting in eighth place and hoping to move up the ladder in the stacked, 32-team field. That’s just what they did.

With seven wrestlers still alive in the second day of action at Mishawaka High School, Wawasee’s grapplers earned one runner-up finish, two third-place results and one fifth-place finish on the way to a two-day total of 138 points, finishing in seventh place overall. Indianapolis Cathedral scored 233 points to finish head and shoulders above the rest of the field for the tourney title.

“It’s a great effort by all 14 guys. Seven obviously got here today and wrestled very well today, too. We had a great day yesterday and a great day today,” said Wawasee coach Frank Bumgardner.

Geremia Brooks made the 132-pound championship, where a familiar opponent was waiting in Jimtown’s Matt Gimson. Brooks, ranked sixth in the state by Indianamat.com, actually led the fifth-ranked Gimson late in the second round, but a takedown and two back points under the wire gave Gimson a 10-7 advantage headed into the third period. It was Brooks who scored a late takedown in the third period, but he ultimately fell short of the title, 12-9.

“I thought he wrestled very well. There are some things that we need to adjust in that matchup. We’ve seen Gimson I think four or five times now in the last 10 months so they’re becoming very familiar with one another, and it gets tough,” explained Bumgardner. “I wasn’t the biggest fan of some of the calls that were made there, but bottom line you’ve got to dominate the action and we didn’t do that. We’re going to go back and get better, but he had a phenomenal tournament.”

One weight class up, Brooks’ cousin Braxton Alexander bounced back from a disappointing semifinal loss to another Gimson from Jimtown, Conner Gimson, with a dominant showing in his third-place match with Perry Meridian’s Gabe Smith, nearly sticking Smith midway through the third period but ultimately settling for back points and a 6-2 decision for third place at 138 pounds. Damien Rodriguez scored Wawasee another third-place result with a sudden victory takedown of Bloomington South’s Nolan Wampler at the tail end of a 195-pound war.

“It was very evident how we’re trying to wrestle. Braxton was very dominant. The score wasn’t dominant, but the action was. He wrestled that kid earlier yesterday so to beat the kid twice in two days is very difficult. He had another great tournament,” said Bumgardner.

“Damien wrestled with a ton of heart. I thought he wrestled harder than he did better. He started getting loose with some things as this tournament went on. He really, really had to grind out matches all tournament long. I don’t know if he had a pin at all so six minutes times seven, eight matches, that’s a lot of wrestling in a grinder tournament like this.”

Jace Alexander avoids giving up the takedown during his fifth-place match with Penn’s Vince Sparrow at 120 pounds Saturday.

Also for Wawasee Saturday, Alex Castro placed fifth at 182 pounds with a 5-1 decision over Columbus East’s Noah White and a forfeit win in the fifth-place console. Jace Alexander gave up a late pinfall to Penn’s Vince Sparrow in their fifth-place 120-pound bout, the second meeting with Sparrow at the tournament and third in the past two weeks. Garrett Stuckman wound up in eighth place at 145 pounds, meanwhile, as did Raymon Torres following a sudden victory loss to Merrillville’s Jason Streck in their 170-pound console.

“Those guys all did wrestle hard, and in a tournament like this effort is going to win a lot of the time. Unfortunately for some of those guys, it just didn’t,” Bumgardner said. “But first year back in this tournament, these guys hadn’t seen this environment and with that being said these guys all wrestled offseason. They’ve all wrestled in tournaments like this so the environment wasn’t a shocker. In the middle of our high school season to get a tournament of this grinding nature, it says a lot about their character with the fact that they kept grinding.”

Wawasee will defend its Class 2A title at the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association State Duals at the Fort Wayne Coliseum next Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m.

“We’ve got to learn from this. We’ve got team state next week so it’ll be a good opportunity to keep momentum building,” said Bumgardner. “Since our December Duals we’ve continually gotten better. We’re performing more consistently. I definitely think it’s a good springboard moving forward, and we’ll see how we respond.”

Jake Lone pins LaPorte’s Noah Perez in their 182-pound third-place match on day two of the Al Smith.

Meanwhile Saturday, NorthWood’s Jake Lone bounced back from a 9-3 loss  to Chesterton’s Evan Bates with a dominant showing versus LaPorte’s Noah Perez in the 182-pound third-place match, running up an 8-0 lead on his way to a pinfall in 3:31.

“Really his best match of the year here in this third-place match, which says a lot about a kid,” explained NorthWood coach Nate Andrews. “Some kids — it reminds me of the bowl games right now and the layoffs — some teams want to be there and finish and do their best, and other teams don’t care as much. Unfortunately sometimes you see that a little bit in console matches. But Jake came out and wrestled his most dominant performance of the season.”

At 170 pounds, Jaden Miller was eliminated with a 2-2 record Friday. But his two losses were to defending state champion Joseph Walker and to the wrestler who ultimately beat that defending state champ in the finals, Columbus East’s Nick South.

“He’s got to understand and know how close he is and how good he is. He’s nearly on the level of a lot of these guys,” Andrews said of Miller. “I’m telling you, he’s got an opportunity to fine tune some things, and if he gets it right in his head he’s got an opportunity to be right there in the mix.”

All told, NorthWood finished with 54 points, good enough for 24th place overall. It was a good stepping stone for a young team looking to build for the future.

“Really we gave a good performance for us and where we’re at right now in our program. Every single kid that entered the Al Smith from NorthWood High School won a match, and to me that’s a big victory. To me, that’s one of those rungs on the ladder that we need to take in our program, and that’s a positive,” Andrews said.