Emeric Ritter, Max Quiroz, Caden Mahaffey, Patrick Mochen and Lucas Anderson win their wrestling matches convincingly but Merrillville prevails over Chesterton 46-29

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Visiting Merrillville prevailed 46-29 Thursday night in a boys wrestling dual meet, but plenty of matches still made for an exciting night as the spotlight from the new scoreboard shined on the combatants in the ring.
For sheer talent on both sides, nothing could match Chesterton’s Max Quiroz, ranked by indianamat.com No. 8 in the state at 132 pounds, moving up a weight class to clash with Warren Brown III, No. 6 in the state at 138 pounds.
A year ago, Brown was a state qualifier at 132. Quiroz lost in the ticket round in sudden victory time at 126 pounds.
The match swung back and forth Thursday night until Quiroz prevailed with a pin with four seconds left in the second period. It was the final match of the night, so it enabled the home fans to head for the parking lot in a good mood.
For sheer excitement, nothing could top what Chesterton sophomore Emeric Ritter did at 126 pounds. It served as a reminder that it pays to watch a wrestling match to its completion even if the outcome seems inevitable.
Ritter appeared to be in danger of losing by a major decision (anywhere from an eight-to-14-point deficit, which earns four points for the team) or even a technical fall (15 points, at which point the match is stopped and the winner’s school is awarded five points).
Then somehow, some way, a flip switched inside Ritter and the same wrestler who had trailed 10-3 after two periods executed a pin on senior Marion McClain 1:10 into the third period.
When he answered a question as to how Ritter was able to turn the match so convincingly, Chesterton coach Andrew Trevino quickly made it apparent he was more interested in addressing what caused the deficit in the first place.
“We had a little seed of doubt. This kid was strong and we started doubting it right away,” Trevino said. “And then we pop off a nice score and then he’s like, ‘I can do it. I can do it.’ Just one takedown can put the wind in your sails and you go. And them stopping your one takedown can take the wind out of your sails. You have to have no memory of that and just keep going. You have to learn to wrestle where not everything is so emotional. Just get to the next point, the next point.”
Battling exhaustion in the third period and hungry to eat into the deficit, Ritter let his coaches do his thinking for him.
“I heard the coaches tell me to keep cutting him, keep cutting him, and I just listened,” Ritter said, meaning to let the opponent go and earn one point for an escape so that he can widen the lead by taking him down again. “Coach (Nicholas) Chavez talked me through it. He told me to keep my stance low and keep attacking him and keep my pace up.”
Trevino thought that Ritter was wise to “cut his opponent so hard that one time,” because it, “got into his head a little.”
Ritter had the endurance to stay at the frantic pace that he needed to catch up, a sign that he had crossed the bridge from football shape to wrestling conditioning.
“I think I’m in great shape,” Ritter said. “I work on it every day in the room. We just keep going until we can’t, and even when we can’t, we just keep going. That’s our mentality.”
Another factor drove Ritter to be at his best when it counted most.
“I lost to him last year at DACs and I wanted to get my revenge for that, so I just kept working,” Ritter said.
By the time Ritter executed the pin, he had taken McClain down and cut him so many times that he had a 16-12 lead.
“Any time you beat a kid from Merrillville, Portage, that’s good stuff,” Trevino said. “He’s a kid who’s been wrestling long enough. He’s got a little name for himself. It’s time for him to make a better name for himself.”
Nobody had to work harder for a win than Ritter.
In contrast, Patrick Mochen needed just 33 seconds to pin Isaiah Joyner.
Mochen had been wrestling up at 190 most of last season and all of this season. He and Lucas Anderson switched for this match and possibly some future matches, giving Mochen the opportunity to wrestle at 175, his natural weight.
“Patrick was hungry,” Trevino said. “He was in beast mode.”
And he looked larger than life under the spotlight, lifting his opponent off the ground, reminiscent of an incensed King Kong holding a skyscraper.
The source of the beast mode version of Mochen? Could it be that since the match took place during finals week, he already was in beast mode, dominating final after final, as he is wont to do?
“Good kid,” Trevino said. “Works hard in the classroom and on the mat.”
But the coach offered another explanation than academic dominance spilling over to the mat.
“Mochen just outmatched him,” Trevino said. “Senior against freshman, that should happen. Some freshmen come in ready to compete at state and some kids come in and need a year or two to climatize to a high school room.”
Plenty of time remains for the coaches and the wrestlers to reach an alignment that makes the most sense in terms of the postseason.
“I’ll go anywhere. I’m ready wherever,” Anderson said of whether he’ll try to get to state at 175 or 190.
“My dad and I talk about it once in a while but everything can change. Like somebody can get hurt. We’re just trying to figure out where it’s going to end up.”
It took Anderson 3:19 to pin Bryce Montgomery at 190.
Anderson was bounced by Penn’s Vinny Freeman, son of Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman, in the ticket round at the East Chicago semi-state last season at 175 pounds.
Said Mochen: “The coaches will look at both paths. I think he has a very good chance at either one, but they’ll see what he’s good for.”
As for which weight he prefers, Mochen said, “Whatever the coaches think is best.”
When it was suggested he looked better at 175, he said that wrestling his best match of the season didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the weight.
“I think I did a better job of positioning,” Mochen said. “I pretended like I was wrestling Coach Chavez because he’s always disappointed when I don’t have good positioning. So I just pretended like I was wrestling him.”
He did it well and also did a splendid job of pretending to be a beast.
Caden Mahaffey also showed senior dominance over a freshman by defeating Merrillvile’s Jared Quezada 19-1 by technical fall late in the final minute of the third period.