Ream beat Mills in the championship match last season at Eaton.
»RELATED: Saturday’s high school roundup
»RELATED: Saturday’s high school scoreboard
“I didn’t think about it too much. I just went out and wrestled hard,” sad Mills, who improved to 16-2 after pinning all four of his opponents. “It feels great. You want to keep doing it.”
Valley View matched CJ with a tournament-high three individual champions. Senior Joey Dima (17-1) beat Westfall junior Chanston Moll 8-3 to win the 120-pound title and senior Christian Meyers (14-3) beat Bellbrook junior Matthew Billock 9-5 at 195.
Also for the Spartans, sophomore Noah Harrison finished fourth at 182, sophomore Keith Kinner was fifth at 220, junior Caleb Cox was sixth at 145 and freshman Jayden Stephenson was sixth at 106.
“I was happy. We don’t have a lot of depth this year so a lot of guys stepped up and wrestled well,” Valley View coach Bill Miller said. “Justin Mills has been working his butt off. He wants to get to state so bad. … Joey Dimas has been a nice team leader for us all year and has won a number of tournaments.”
Hamilton Ross won the Eaton Invitational with 181.5 points. Chaminade Julienne was second with 161.5 and Valley View was third with 147.
Valley View, which filled 12 of the 14 weight classes at Eaton, has struggled with numbers this season. Three district qualifiers decided not to wrestle this season and the junior high program also lost a few wrestlers.
“It’s the way the world is right now. It’s not like when we were kids,” Miller said. “When we were kids you went home and mom made you do homework. Now you go home and there are a lot of other activities and electronics. It’s really hard to walk into a wrestling room. But the one’s that do it, they’ll never regret it. You’re never going to be 40 and go, ‘Hey, remember the time we stayed up and played Fortnite all night?’
“They’re a good group of kids and working hard. The hardest thing when you have low numbers is keeping the intensity up. They’ve done pretty well with that.”
• CJ’s runner-up finish was highlighted by championships from junior Isaiah Wortham (25-3) at 132, sophomore David Frederick (20-6) at 170 and senior Hunter Johns (25-1) at 182.
Wortham scored a 7-3 decision over Reading’s Colton Robins. Frederick held off Franklin’s Gage Johnson 5-4 at 170. And Hunter Johns won an 11-2 major decision over Logan Iams of Ross.
• Wayne heavyweight Jacob Padilla continued his undefeated season with four more wins, including three by pin. Padilla stuck his first three opponents in 47 seconds, 44 seconds and 1:20. He beat Alex Coleman of Ross 8-2 in the 285-pound final. Sophomore teammate Austin Mullins (20-4) earned a 10-3 decision over Ross’s Brayden Ploehs for the title at 145.
• Also winning titles were Stebbins senior David Hasty (23-2) at 126, Thurgood Marshall’s Ayyoub Muhammed (22-0) at 138 and Milton-Union senior Dylan Schenck (28-3) won at 152.
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