After massive OVAC tournament, Dover wrestlers take on Sandy Valley, Ridgewood

(MAGNOLIA) (WJER) (January 20, 2022) – In high school wrestling, Dover, Sandy Valley and Ridgewood face off Thursday in a tri-meet at Sandy Valley.

The Cardinals’ wrestling team has battled absences and struggled with numbers at times this season after last year’s team set a school record with seven state qualifiers. The Cardinals have wins over Tusky Valley, New Philadelphia and Garaway.

The Ridgewood Generals have had their moments this season. They placed fourth in December’s Coshocton Classic, with five wrestlers finishing in the top three.

Dover has recent wins over Claymont and New Philadelphia. This past weekend the Tornadoes finished 13th out of 41 teams at the massive Ohio Valley Athletic Conference meet in West Virginia.

Brandon Kiser improved his record to 26-2 by placing third. Nathan Perez placed fourth, Egidio Difazio placed fifth, and Pedro Garcia placed sixth.

Dover Coach Brian Bullock says the huge brackets meant they had to wrestle six or seven times over three days to reach the podium.

“They were all at the Jeff Jordan camp over the summer and they’re finding out that the hard work they put in over the summer is helping them to do well,” he said.

Bullock says his team’s looking forward to seeing how they measure up against Sandy Valley.

“We’ll have to … see if we can turn the tide on them,” he said. “They got us last year so hopefully we can do a little better against them and keep building on what we’ve done the last few weeks.”

The high school wrestling postseason starts the last weekend in February with sectionals.

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