Hounds sweep Trojans in double dual

FORT MADISON – What the heck is a leg cradle?
Ask Fort Madison sophomore Oliver Schelich and he can tell you. Schelich executed the move in his win over Ezekiel Moore Thursday night to help the Bloodhounds to a 56-20 win over Fairfield in Southeast Conference boys' wrestling.
“That’s called a leg cradle. It was just right there. My leg was right there and I just had to get his leg wrapped around so I thought I might as well go for something cool,” Schelich said after the rare pin move.
Head Coach Nic Chiri said it’s rare and a walk-off move, but he hadn’t seen one in quite awhile.
“It’s definitely a one-off move. It’s something you really don’t even practice,” Chiri said.
“But it was there - the opportunity was actually there and when I saw it there I thought he might as well go for it. I haven’t seen one of those in, like, a decade.”
Schelich said he’s done it messing around in practice but never in a match.
“It was just there. You just have to feel those things when you’re wrestling,” he said.
"I like to judge my opponents before I wrestle, and I was watching him warm up. That’s something big to me to see how they warm up and I saw some things there so I went after ‘em.”
The Hounds were leading 14-12 at the time Schelich stepped onto the mat at 138 lbs. His pin gave the Hounds a 20-12 lead. River Fulton then pulled off a sudden victory in a back-and-forth affair with Fort Madison’s Liam McEntee with a 3-point takedown 10 seconds into the overtime session. McEntee scored a dramatic takedown with less than 5 seconds left in the match to knot things up at 17 and force the extra time.

Fort Madison would then win six of the next seven with the only loss coming at the hands of Class 3A No. 3 Dain Burkhart who downed Clifford Stewart by tech fall at 17-2 at the end of the 2nd period.
Fort Madison also got wins from Baylor Ferreira at 285, Ren Watson at 215 lbs. with a pin over Sebastian Ftwi: Jack Benner by fall over Calvin McClain at 165 lbs., Rainer Johnson by fall at 190 lbs.; Ryker Peters by fall at 150 lbs.; James Fuller by tech fall 18-1 over Hayden Bowman at 126; and Zane Houtz by fall at 113 lbs.
Chiri said the Hounds were thinking the match would come down to one or two key matches, but that didn’t turn out to be the case and he credited that to the conditioning of the Fort Madison wrestlers.
“We knew it was going to be tough. Fairfield is awfully good on top so we worked all week underneath,” he said.
“We haven’t done well underneath all year. Our mentality is to think that’s where you rest. Our guys are in such good shape, though, and today that really paid off. We had this coming down to one or two matches and the ‘tweener matches', we won all of them.
Mt. Pleasant has a win over the Hounds in the conference race, but Chiri said with the competition level the way it is, the SEC title is still up for grabs. The Hounds have Burlington and Keokuk left.
In the girls' dual, the Hounds won easily 54-18 taking advantage of six forfeits but also getting pins from Briena Fenton at 120 lbs., Mady Emmett at 190 lbs.; and Eloise Lamb in just 27 seconds over Bekah Zirkle at 110 lbs.
Sophomore Kat DiPrima won by forfeit at 145 lbs. and secured her 100th win of her career as a junior. She joins Mara Smith as the only two female wrestlers in the program's history to reach the century mark in wins.
“It’s spectacular. Everyone in the area knows how hard she works. She’s very dedicated to the sport. It’s good to see that milestone, but the one thing with Kat is she’s just a junior. She joins really good company.”
He said he would have liked to see her get the win on the mat, but that will likely happen Friday night when they travel to Mid-Prairie for the last tournament of the season. They are then off for the next eight days and then travel to Iowa City High for regional action.