Lakers moving forward as postseason approaches

Feb. 14—In all his years of wrestling, whether coaching or on the mat himself, Dave Miller has probably learned there's a counter for just about every situation one could get themselves into on the mat.

Unfortunately, though, the Pymatuning Valley coach said he had no experience with helping his tean overcome the news they learned about a week and a half ago.

When the news broke that Ali Fazal, the Lakers 285 pounder had died recently, Miller said that nothing he'd encountered from his experience could help.

"No," he said. "For me personally you know, having to deal with the things for the kids and that kind of stuff, there's nothing you can do. Everyone is going to react differently and there's a process that the kids are going through as far as how they are going to deal with it and rationalize it.

"But, there's nothing you can do that can prepare you for it other than try to support them in any way you can."

Miller canceled practice that Friday and for the weekend. The Lakers had a dual scheduled with Jefferson the following Wednesday. But when they got back into the room, takedowns and escapes were not the priority.

"The first thing we did was talk about how exactly we're going to move forward," he said. "They did not want to wrestle on Wednesday. That's where we were, and it took most of the guys the whole week to get back in the groove."

The dual with the Falcons was pushed back to Friday. In honor of Fazal, Jefferson forfeited the 285-pound weight class. The Lakers won the dual 46-29. The win moved their dual record to 13-2 and clinched the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League Division III championship.

"There are things that are way more important than a dual match," Jefferson coach Cody Lewis said. "The wrestling community is a great community, even though we're wrestling against each other.

"We wanted to do whatever we could to help them heal and move forward."

More importantly, though, it gave the PV wrestlers a little bit of closure to something that will no doubt stay with them the rest of their lives.

"I don't know how to describe it," Miller said. "It was difficult, but it was something that we did in the beginning and let the kids move forward. It wasn't like a thing of anticipation. We did it and I think it was a very nice thing that I think we did. We moved forward."

The EOWL dual-meet championship was the first for PV since 2017.

While this year's Lakers team may not have any wrestlers such as Gaige Willis, who won a pair of Division III state championships (195 in 2017 and 220 in 2018), time will tell if there's one such as Victor Verba, who was a DIII state placer at 285 two years ago.

What they do have, however, is a deep group of wrestlers that makes them tough to beat in a team setting.

"We're a good dual team," Miller said. "We have a lot of kids out and all of them have matured in some form or fashion. We have some upperclassmen that know what it takes to win in a dual. They've kind of dragged the younger guys along with them. We have a lot of guys that can contribute."

PV will wrap up the regular season on Wednesday night in a dual at Geneva.

Tthe postseason starts with the Division III sectional tournament at Berkshire on Feb. 25.

Miller knows as well as anyone that qualifying for the districts or even the state tournament is pale in comparison to matters such as what the Laker wrestlers have had to deal with over the past week and a half.

Still, the hope is that they're now ready to go out and execute in a manner that will keep their season going for at least one more match.

"This is it," Miller said. "Pretty much the entire season has been practice. This is not where we want to mess up. We've gotten our mistakes out of the way, we've cleaned up enough things that need to be successful and we can get as many guys out as possible."

PV has five wrestlers with more 20 wins.

Seniors Jayce Dietrich (144) and Nick Hitchcock (175) have 28 and 23, respectively.

Sophomore Brennan Moore (157) checks in with 24 win and freshmen Brawley McCowien (113) has 23 and Bennett Claypoole (150) each have 20.