By Josh Brown
Miami Valley Today
TROY — Wrestling at 160 in Division I, Troy’s Carlos Quintero has already seen plenty of tough competition throughout his senior season.
Tuesday, he showed just where that’s put him with the league meet roughly three weeks away.
Quintero dominated Northmont’s James Wilson during the Trojans’ Senior Night dual Tuesday at Troy High School, piling up nine takedowns to score an 18-9 major decision, one of three Troy wins against a stacked Thunderbolt lineup as Northmont won the dual 64-13.
Troy honored its two seniors — Quintero and Carson DeHart (152) — and Quintero was able to score a victory in front of the home crowd.
“It feels good, especially with some of the wrestlers that I’ve seen throughout the year,” Quintero said. “I’ve worked to be able to that, and I’m glad to be able to show up tonight.”
And Quintero did it in dominant fashion, too, scoring takedown after takedown and letting his opponent up in between so he could pile up points two at a time all the way to the major.
“As he gets in better shape throughout the season, he wants to open up more, get more takedowns and get on the record board,” Troy coach Doug Curnes said. “He’s got other goals than just state, and that’s what he’s working on now. He wants to push himself, and we want to push him to the shape to be able to do that. It takes a lot of work to get to that point, and tonight was a good start.”
Quintero, who missed out on the postseason entirely last season, is using that as fuel to motivate him to his ultimate goal this year — reaching the state tournament.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to wrestle the second half of last season,” Quintero said. “It is (driving me). Hopefully this year I can be a state qualifier and placer.”
DeHart, meanwhile, found himself matched up against a dominant force in Northmont’s Andrew Knick, a state placer last season.
“Knick, his opponent, was sixth at state last year,” Curnes said. “He’s a hammer, a collegiate-level wrestler, and Carson kind of got thrown to the wolves. But I gave him the option before the match, and he decided he wanted to wrestle.”
And even though he was pinned at 1:00 of the first period, DeHart still took something away from the match.
“There was a moment in that match, a brief moment, where Carson had him in an awkward position. But strength is obviously the difference factor there,” Curnes said. “Carson came off the mat and I got in his ear, and he said ‘I felt that! I was this close, I felt it.’ And I said good, at least you felt it. Now you know for later.”
Overall, Troy won the first two matches wrestled on the night, with Nolan Fox (106) pinning Drake Givens with 44.2 seconds remaining in the second period and Zach Evans (126) defeating Christian Pendleton in a 6-4 decision.
“We all did pretty well tonight, even though they had more wrestlers,” Quintero said. “I hope we can get a good amount of people to districts so we can get as good a place at sectionals as possible, especially with our numbers.”
But Northmont picked up forfeits at 113 and 120, then added two more forfeits at 132 and 138 to take a 24-9 lead without the benefit of an actual victory. Troy’s Tyler Plunkett (145) then lost an 18-1 tech. fall to Noah Wilkins and Knick scored his pin, giving the Bolts a 35-9 lead before Quintero picked up his win — Troy’s final win of the night — to make the overall score 35-13.
“They had a full roster, so we forfeitted five spots. And we worked hard to get to nine (matches) from what we had,” Curnes said. “The best we can have right now is filling 10. That’s been our ultimate goal all year, and we’re still progressing. We’re not behind by any means, so I’m happy with where we’re at.”
Northmont then picked up four more wins, in addition to a fifth forfeit at 285. Troy’s Gabe Cusick (170) dropped a 17-0 tech. fall to Peyton Lepton, Joe Cusick (182) was pinned by Bryce Asher with 1.5 seconds remaining in the first period, Noah Leach (195) was pinned by Phil Tracey with 45 seconds remaining in the first and Zach Abdulkassim (220) was pinned by Jake Staley with 1:07 remaining in the first.
Troy next competes in a double dual Thursday at Fairmont.
Contact Josh Brown at [email protected], or follow @TroyDailySports on Twitter.
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