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Magrum, Witt and Tank ALL Win State Titles |
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Written by John Schaffner
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Sunday, 02 March 2008 |
The long and storied history of Oak Harbor High School Wrestling has never seen anything like this. Three Oak Harbor seniors gained the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division II finals, and all three walked off the mat as State Champs. Unprecedented! Oak Harbor also finished second in the State in Division II, well behind the dominant St. Paris Graham team that had no less than 12 wrestlers place.
It wasn’t easy, it never is at this level. Rocket Coach George Bergman knows that better than anyone. He was there, sort of, when the run of great Rocket wrestlers began, when he was still a high school rival at Cardinal Stritch back in the mid to late 1970s. He was around for Oak Harbor’s first State Champ, Jeff Winke. He wrestled in the weight class just ahead of Oak Harbor’s Mark Mayer and Stritch’s Clark Gould (Mayer defeated Gould in the State Finals, having lost to him in the Sectionals and District finals).
It all started with Kirk Tank at 152 lbs. He faced St. Paris Graham’s Coby Boyd in the finals, the wrestler that denied him a state title in the finals last year. The two battled to a tie and had to go into overtime. That is when Tank hit Boyd with a big move and put his opponents shoulders to the mat for a fall just 42 second into the overtime period.
Keith Witt was next at 171 lbs. He met up again with Danny Michaels of Clyde, whom he had defeated several times this season in very close matches. This one wasn’t close, as Witt scored a 12-6 decision to give the Rockets their second weight class champ.
Then came Cody Magrum, going for his 3rd straight title against Eastwood’s Jeremy Foster, who had wrestled Magrum tough at the sectionals and Districts but Cody prevailed. Thoughts of Mayer-Gould must have been going through George Bergman’s head as the match was razor close throughout. In the end, Cody Magrum prevailed 4-3 to become a 3-time State Champ.
In the last 33 years, Oak Harbor has produced some incredible wrestlers…Jeff Winke, Mike Carmen, the Blays, the Mincheffs, the Millers, the Biggerts, Greg Goad, and of course, the Bergmans, including JD, who will be joined by Cody Magrum at Ohio State next season. Many were in attendance to witness history Saturday night at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus. In the 33 years since Denny Kersten got this thing going at Oak Harbor, NEVER have the Rockets had three State Champs in one season. That streak was broken on Saturday, carrying Oak Harbor to 2nd in Division II, behind arguably the best high school wrestling team in the nation … St. Paris Graham.
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