Wrestlers on the bench watched with hands over their mouths as Brock Templar won his match by pin Tuesday at Blair High School.
The Bears' 152-pounder cinched in a leg cradle and held it, pinning Gretna's Grant Zeleny in 1:15 as BHS routed the Dragons in a nonconference dual, 71-4.
“I mean, that's not really a normal move,” he explained. “But, I do it in practice sometimes.”
Templar recalled recently locking the cradle in against teammate Yoan Camejo, too.
“I had him in it and I was going, 'Hudson (Loges), look at this,'” he said, detailing the holiday break practice. “And everybody was just laughing.”
Templar's victory was one of nine for Blair across 10 contested matches with Gretna on Tuesday. Brock Hamm, Jim Rasmussen, Thomas Chikos and Seagan Packett-Trisdale picked up team points by forfeit, too.
The BHS win at 152 pounds, though, was one of six pins for coach Erich Warner's squad.
“I saw him come creeping into my legs, so I just sat in the corner, locked my legs and pulled him over,” Templar said.
The leg cradle pushed the Bears' dual lead to 21-0. Jesse Loges and Atticus Dick had already earned pins at 138 and 145 pins, respectively, after Tyson Brown won the 132-pound opener by 6-1 decision.
“I was looking for an easy first takedown to start it off,” the latter said, describing the very start of the dual. “It didn't go as planned, but as soon as I took him down it was pretty easy from there.”
Brown grabbed the ankle of Gretna's Jack Thompson in short order, but had to work a bit to finally score his first two takedown points of the match with the Dragon's shoe still in hand.
“I kind of had it a little low,” the BHS grappler said of the hold. “But once I got it to the shoulder, I was able to try and take him down.”
Camejo later added his own second-period pin at 160 pounds before Kaden Sears took just 59 seconds to top Jeb Larchick at 170.
From there, the Bears added their forfeit points, Hudson Loges claimed a pin at 106 pounds and Tannon Bellamy scored a 19-3 technical fall at 113.
BHS dropped its lone match at 120 pounds to Gretna's Daniel Roll before the Bears' Luke Frost capped off the 67-point win with an 11-7 decision at 126. Brown agreed that the dominant dual victory was a good statement to make at the of start 2023.
“We'll take it,” he said.
The Bears next compete 3 p.m. today in the Eastern Midlands Conference Duals Tournament at Waverly before another road trip to Atlantic, Iowa, on Saturday. The weekend matches across the Missouri River begin at 10 a.m.
JV wrestlers win matches, too
The Blair boys wrestling team picked up 10 junior varsity wins against Gretna on Tuesday, too.
Carson Faue and Jacob Gaskill led the way with two pins apiece. Wyatt Loftis, Mac Tupa, Griffin Rosterman, Eli Bush (2) and Jaxson Doolin won matches with Dragons as well.
