Swanton Continues To Sizzle; Grabs Ippolito Gold

BRANDON - With senior Schuyler Swanton winning the Most Valuable Wrestler trophy and having three wrestlers finish in the championship bracket, the Springstead Eagles were able to finish third in this past weekend's 24th annual Tony Ippolito Wrestling Tournament in Hillsborough County.

Brandon won the tournament for the 16th straight time by winning six weight classes and scoring 351.5 team points to beat out Bradenton-Manatee with 230 points and Springstead with 182.5.

Since nearly every school in the 30-team meet will end up facing the Eagles in the Class 2A, Region II Tournament in two weeks at Kissimmee-Poinciana, a third-place finish by Springstead was viewed as outstanding.

"It was a good Ippolito Tournament for us," praised fourth-year Springstead Head Coach Eric Swensen. "With (Thad) Klenovich and (Steven) Bliss both hurt, we just sat them down for the weekend. So for us to take third place with two of our starters missing, I feel pretty good about that."

Swanton shines

The highlight of the night was the win by the senior Swanton at 112 pounds. The two-time defending state placer began the tournament by getting a technical fall in beating Skip Reagol of Bloomingdale, 15-0.

Next, he pinned Hector Rivera of Tampa-Middleton in 57 seconds to reach the quarterfinals.

A pin over Manuel Lynch of East Bay in 45 seconds sent the Eagle senior to the semifinals where he pinned Mikey Torres of Manatee in 4:51 to advance to the finals.

In that match, Swanton led 4-1 midway through the second period before Terry Dawson of Brandon earned a reversal and then got a point from Swanton for stalling to tie it at 4-all early in the last period.

With Dawson on top, the Brandon coach and crowd yelled for the hometown wrestler before Swanton won the match be getting a reversal, plus a takedown in the last 14 seconds of the match.

Springstead's other finalists, however, did not fare as well.

At 103 pounds, junior Dustin Soto lost in the finals to No. 1 seeded Sean Padgett of Brandon when he was pinned at 2:47 of their bout.

C. J. Cook also reached the tournament final at 125 but he was pinned in 22 seconds by Nick Hutchinson of Brandon.

"This is our region," Swenson said Saturday during the finals. "Lake Gibson isn't here, but this is a very good showcase for us."

Others stand out

Other Springstead wrestlers that had top-six finishes including heavyweight Carlos Ramirez, who took third, while Skylar Huff (119) was fourth, Scott Wern (171) and Cesar Acosta (189) both finished fifth along with a sixth-place finish by freshman Nick Soto at 130 pounds.

"With both Klenovich and (Steven) Bliss out, we had some people pick up some points for us today we didn't expect," said Swensen. "Guys like Nick Soto and Carlos Ramirez wrestled well for us today."

To Swensen, the upcoming state tournament (Feb. 14-16) is the most important portion of the Eagles' schedule.

"We have some time to rest and work toward the district and regional tournament," Swensen detailed. "We tell them those are important team goals and we want to win them so our seniors will have won them all four years they are here."