For the third time this season, the Manchester grapplers came home with some hardware as they captured the team title at the Woodmore "A" Classic wrestling tournament, on Jan. 9 at Elmore High School (near Toledo).
The Panthers, who are repeat champions, won the event with 246 points edging Swanton with 236.5.
Rounding out the top five were Archbold (195 points), Lake (153.5), and Gibonsburg (151).
Manchester senior Kyle Kelly (285 pounds) was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player winning all five of his matches
Kelly entered this past weekend's Bill Dies Memorial Tournament with a perfect 18-0 record.
"Kyle (Kelly) had a great tournament for us," praised Head Coach Greg Brown. "He wrestled in a pretty decent weight beating a kid from Swanton that was a state qualifier. That's what earned him the MVP."
Other individual champions for the black and red were sophomore Kyle Ferguson (103 pounds), senior Josh Kapper (125), and junior Shane Brown (135).
The trio all posted 6-0 marks. Ferguson is 16-3 on the ledger, while Kapper is 16-0, and Brown is 19-0.
Also placing were sophomore Chris Cantrell (119) second, sophomore Johnny Morrison (112) third, junior Ken Facemire (130) fifth, and juniors Tanner Murat (145), and Jon Becker (215), and freshman Cody Miller (160) sixth.
"I'm real happy the with results," said Brown. "Overall, as a team we wrestled well again. We had four champions, and some of our younger secondary kids did a nice job."
Manchester will travel to Ashland for a tri-match on Wednesday, and compete at the TK Duals at Geneva High School on Saturday.
