Trojans girls wrestling squad wins season debut vs. Bishop Noll, 22-18, in first Chesterton wrestling match under new scoreboard’s spotlight as vastly improved sophomore Lauren Osburn shines

By Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Lauren Orsburn was announced as Chesterton’s 135-pound wrestler in a dual meet with visiting Bishop Noll on Tuesday night.
And the results published on usabracketing.com also lists Orsburn, but she certainly didn’t wrestle anything like the freshman version of the wrestler by the same name.
Orsburn was on the attack from the start and never relented on her way to a 9-0, major decision over Noll’s Citlaly Lara.
“Heck yeah, I’ve improved,” Orsburn beamed after the Trojans had completed their 22-18 victory. “I'm surprised. I'm really surprised how good I've done so far. I’m really happy. I felt I was a lot more confident than last year. I was doing a lot better with practicing and competing mentally more.”
Orsburn used the offseason to help her conquer her biggest barrier before turning her attention to opponents: her own fear.
“I was just really nervous last year all the time,” she said. “I was really, really scared last year, and I think that's why I didn't do that well. But I think I've improved a lot.”
She said she’s not exactly sure how she did it.
“I'm not sure if I just care more about it or if it's more important to me this year than it was last year, but I think I was just really excited to compete and be able to actually show off that I've been doing a little bit better than last year,” she said.
Orsburn said she worked on wrestling as much as her offseason schedule allowed, which she said was limited by her role as one of the managers for the football team.
She has wrestled enough to develop a go-to maneuver: “I like doing headlocks into snapdowns. Those are my favorites. That’s what I used for my takedowns tonight.”
Six points are awarded for a pin and for a forfeit. A technical fall, which occurs when one wrestler has a 15-point advantage and the match is stopped, is worth five points. A major decision, a win of eight points or more, earns the team four points and a decision is worth three points.
Since IHSAA girls wrestling is in its second year, many schools still don’t have the numbers to cover all 14 weight classes. In Tuesday night’s season-opener, neither Noll nor Chesterton had a wrestler in seven of the weight classes, so those were skipped with no points awarded. Noll won two forfeits to one for Chesterton, giving the Warriors a 12-6 advantage.
The Trojans more than compensated, winning 3 of 4 in the weight classes in which both schools had a wrestler.
At 120, Chesterton freshman MJ Scharp won her debut with a pin of Alice Tolnai at the very end of the first period.
At 130, Trojans junior Ally Williams pinned Toni Gillespie in 28 seconds.
The spotlight from the new scoreboard shined on the ring in the middle of the mat, used in a wrestling match for the first time.
“It was really cool,” girls wrestling head coach Chris Richardson said. “The girls finally got to wrestle under the spotlight.”
Richardson, assisted by Will Scharp, gave the night a thumbs up.
“For our first dual meet, I think that it went really well. We have to work on some things, but overall some of our new girls wrestled for the first time in their first match and did OK.”