Clarion Sports Editor

PRINCETON - A soft-spoken sophomore turning in an MVP performance, a fantastic effort by a freshman in his first time on the 'big stage, and a Tiger twosome taking it out on their foes rather than each other, led to a 5-0 sweep by host Princeton Community Saturday at their annual season-opening five-way super-dual wrestling match.

Wood Memorial also took part in the super-dual, going 1-4 on the day.

The soft-spoken sophomore was Caleb Smith at 119-pounds, who went undefeated at 119-pounds on the day, winning three matches by pinfall, and earning the MVP award for the day."Caleb just looked wonderful, dominating all of his opponents," Tiger wrestling coach Jim Maglis said.

The fantastic freshman was Drake Stein at 145-pounds, who was also 5-0, and also won three matches by pin.

"Going against seniors, he had just a great day," Maglis said of Stein. "He's just a freshman, wrestling juniors and seniors at 145, which is a tough class. He looked good, really poised.

"A lot of times, a freshman coming in has been a stud in middle school, but takes some beatings (coming into the high school level), but today Drake gave some beatings."

"Overall, I was very pleased," Maglis said. "We have a very young team. On our varsity roster, we only have one senior. We're mostly freshmen and sophomores and a couple of juniors.

"It's very promising for the future to be able to do this with a young team. To go 5-0 like this today," Maglis said.

The Tiger twosome are sophomore twins Tyler and Ryan Steelman. With Tyler alternating between 125 and 130-pounds on Saturday, and Ryan holding down the 135-pound weight class, the twins had identical 5-0 records on the day, and identical pinfall wins - two each.

"Those two kids have been so strong," Maglis said. "Their technique is a lot better. This is their third year wrestling and they have been pounding on each other in practice. That and the stuff they have done in the off-season is really paying off. Both wrestled phenomenal."

Also for PCHS, True Cowan (152 and 160-pounds) was 5-0, while Damon McEllhiney (125) was 4-0 with one win by pin, and Alex Greisemer (112) and Trace Jines (140) were 4-1, with two wins by pin. The lone senior on the Tiger varsity roster, Joey Dick (189) was 3-2 on day with one win by pin.

"Everybody wrestled well," Maglis said. "We still need to work on some things as far as conditioning, we definitely have to get a little stronger and their are still a lot of moves we have to work on, but everyone wrestled really well. I couldn't be more pleased we went 5-0 today."

Princeton Community defeated Bedford North Lawrence 39-26, North Knox 48-24, Paoli 47-21, Terre Haute South 38-27 and Wood Memorial 61-9.

Wood's win came over Paoli, 61-21, while the Trojans were edged in a pair of close matches, 39-36 by Bedford North Lawrence and 42-33 by North Knox, along with a 63-18 loss to Terre Haute South and the aforementioned loss to Princeton.

Proving heavyweights for the Trojan matmen were heavyweight Jake Catlisle and 215-pounder Kasey Perkins. Both Carlisle and Perkins went 5-0 on the day, with Perkins winning four bouts by pinfall and Carlisle three.

There was also some history made on the mats for Wood Memorial on Saturday. Versus Paoli, Bri Besing scored the first varsity points ever by a female wrestler for Wood Memorial. Those six-points tallied by the junior came via a forfeit, but still counted as a win for Besing and counted toward Wood's team victory.

Also for Wood Memorial, Jake Miskell (130-pounds), Keagan Akles (140) and Heath Morton all went 3-2 on the day.

At 152-pounds, Wood senior Chris Grubb was 2-1, but didn't wrestle the final two matches of the day due to a shoulder injury.