Blue Aces bring home hardware in state competitions

COMPETITION CHEER TEAM GOES OUT WITH A BANG, CAPTURES STATE TITLE

The Granville competition cheerleading team capped off their season on Sunday with a first-place finish in the OASSA non-building state meet at St. John’s Arena. After finishing runner-up in 2018, the Blue Aces are back on the top of the podium where they last won in 2017 at this level, meaning the upperclassman on the team are now two-time state champions. The seniors on the squad are Brooke Fuller, Peyton Wells, Georgia Bain, Pepita Papunen, Jameson Torrence and Emily Stachler.

THE NEWARK GENERALS GET HOT AT THE RIGHT TIME AND RIDE WAVE OF SCORING TO STATE CHAMPIONSHIP

When the Generals won their state championship in 2018, it was a mix of an accomplished and deep senior group, mostly comprised of Granville students, and talented young players that led them to the promised land and helped them clinch a spot in nationals. However, going into the 2019 season, with a new coach and an almost entirely new rotation of players, the Generals were unproven.

This inexperience showed throughout the first stretch of the season, as they got off to a rocky start, but the Generals ended up closing out the season with an 8-0 record through the last part of their OSHL schedule and through the Buckeye Cup State Championship, where they won in the championship round in dramatic fashion on Sunday.

Down 2-1 going into intermission and not being able to get anything going on the offensive end, Granville junior Nick Williams knotted the score up at 2 early in the final period. Two more scores by the Generals made the score 4-2, and they would end up winning 4-3 and become back-to-back state champions.

Granville students on the squad include senior captain and defensive stalwart Nathan Chaykowski, junior leading scorer Jack Bortle, seniors Riley Ginn and Riley Kill, juniors Gavin Tripp, Tyler Dickerson, Prescott Carey, the aforementioned Williams, as well as freshman goalie Bennett Schilling. Newark will play in the USA National Hockey Championship on March 28- April 1 in Cleveland.  

STATE WRESTLING MEET IS WEEKEND OF HISTORY-MAKING FOR TERRY, VAN METER

When senior Keegan Van Meter and sophomore Douglas Terry clinched spots in the state wrestling meet by making it to the district finals, it was familiar territory for them, as both had qualified for states in 2018, the elder Van Meter qualifying in 2017 as well. Not only did the vaunted Blue Ace duo make it to states, but they excelled, each of them winning their quarterfinal matches and becoming just the second and third state semi-finalists in school history.

While Van Meter’s 182-pound semi-final match did not go as planned, as he had to pull out just 26 seconds into the match due to a knee injury and was forced to forfeit his next two matches, Terry scored a major victory in the semis and moved on to the finals, becoming the first state finalist in Granville history. He would end up falling to senior Jordan Crace, a top-10 ranked wrestler in the country at 145 pounds, by the score of 6-1, but nonetheless had an unprecedented run during the tournament that already makes him the most decorated wrestler in program history as a sophomore.