{"id":175975,"date":"2024-02-18T22:45:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T03:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=175975"},"modified":"2024-02-18T22:46:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T03:46:13","slug":"nwc-knights-lancers-earn-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2024\/02\/18\/nwc-knights-lancers-earn-honors\/","title":{"rendered":"NWC: Knights, Lancers earn honors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADA — Crestview had one individual champion plus two top honors, while Lincolnview had an individual champion and a milestone accomplishment at the Northwest Conference wrestling tournament at Ada High School on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview\u2019s Gavin Grubb finished as the 126 pound champion, his second straight NWC title. Grubb finished the day 5-0 with four pins, including an 8-second pin of Spencerville\u2019s Tanner Braun in the semifinals. He did not have an opponent in the finals and won by forfeit, then was named the NWC\u2019s Most Valuable Wrestler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gavin Grubb repeated as NWC champion and was named Most Valuable Wrestler of the Year. Wyatt Richardson\/file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so happy to see Gavin\u2019s hard work and effort over the past four years be recognized by the coaches across the conference as he was voted as the NWC Wrestler of the Year,\u201d Crestview head coach Jake Sawmiller said. \u201cThat is such a deserving recognition for Gavin and a shining moment for our program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teammate Evan Walls was the runner-up at 215 pounds, and the Knights had three third place finishers: Bobby Tyas (120) Levi Grace (150), and Ayden Martin (165).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview had high hopes to win the title but finished fourth overall due in part to being shorthanded on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was tough as a team to know how good we were all season long and to start today shorthanded with illness and injuries,\u201d Sawmiller explained. \u201cThen we lost Zayden Martin at 157 pounds in the first round due to injury. After starting the day short handed with four varsity kids out due to illness and injury to start, and then to lose Zayden out of the gate really took us out of any realistic contention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, Crestview\u2019s wrestling program made strides and it didn\u2019t go unnoticed, as Sawmiller was named NWC Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really caught off-guard when they announced my name for the award,\u201d Sawmiller said. To start, it\u2019s an absolute honor to be recognized by your peers for this award. However, if it wasn\u2019t for the group of kids that Aaron (LaTurner) and I are currently working with, my name would have never been mentioned. We have the absolute best bunch of kids to have started this first run of our program with. They have shown so much personal growth over the past four years, not just with their successes on the mat but with their maturity growth as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that is what stood out across the conference and I can\u2019t thank these boys enough for trusting in Aaron and I as we try to shape them into not only good wrestlers but more importantly into hard working young men that will succeed later in life,\u201d he added. \u201cAaron and I have been bringing this group of boys through since they were 8-10 years old so this is a bit of an emotional year for us seeing some of their careers winding down in front of our eyes over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lincolnview\u2019s Joey Sawyer was the 138 pound champion, winning the title with a 5-2 decision over Bluffton\u2019s Micah Rehm in the finals. Sawyer went 4-0 on the day with a pair of pins. In addition, Cody Ricker finished second at 144 pounds and along the way earned his 100th career victory as a junior. He\u2019s now the third Van Wert County wrestler to achieve the feat this year, with Grubb and Grace being the other two. Zayden Harter finished fourth at 120 pounds and Dylan Hensley finished fourth at 165 pounds. Jessi Adams placed eighth at 150 pounds. The Lancers finished seventh overall with 83 team points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbus Grove won the team title for the second consecutive year with 286 points, followed by Allen East (263) and Bluffton (212.5). Crestview was fourth (142), followed by Spencerville (138), Ada (93), Lincolnview (83) and Delphos Jefferson (34).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor ADA — Crestview had one individual champion plus two top honors, while Lincolnview had an individual champion and a milestone accomplishment at the Northwest Conference wrestling tournament at Ada High School on Saturday. Crestview\u2019s Gavin Grubb finished as the 126 pound champion, his second straight NWC title. Grubb finished the day 5-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 22:48:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175995,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175975\/revisions\/175995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}