Perkins' Sanchez tops emotional weekend as runner-up at 285

COLUMBUS — Eli Sanchez came up short in Sunday night's Division II heavyweight championship match, but the big Pirate will never forget a weekend full of winning. Sanchez lost a 10-5 decision in the 285-pound final to Hawken's Will Greenberg — who pinned his first three opponents at the Schottenstein Center. The Perkins junior got taken down seconds after the match began, but hung tough and finished his season with a 33-7 record. "(Greenberg) was in the finals last year. Good wrestler," Sanchez said. "I could've done a little bit more, but it's over now. Take it like a man and keep working hard. "I'm proud of myself. I didn't wrestle here last year. To come here and be a runner-up is pretty cool. Fell one match short." Sanchez helped Perkins finish third in the Division II team standings with 72.5 points. Columbus Watterson won the team title with 108 points and Columbus de Sales was second at 74.5. "I'm super proud of (Sanchez) and the team. We battled all weekend," Perkins coach Travis Crabtree said. "We were wrestling on house money. All the predictors had us 11th, 12th, so to come in and finish third and peak at the right time, it was a great tournament for our kids and community." Greenberg, who finished 41-4, made it difficult for Sanchez to produce much offense. "Good defense, lower center of gravity than a lot of kids I got in on this weekend," Sanchez said. "We knew he wanted to forward pressure off the rip and he did that. Our goal was to circle, hand fight and create angles, but it wasn't there today." Added Crabtree: "Eli had nothing to lose. He wrestled the whole six minutes. The kid came out and took him down as soon as the whistle blew. But it was a great experience for Eli. He'll remember this for the rest of his life." Sanchez, a district runner-up, pinned his first opponent Friday. He scored a 14-4 major decision in the quarterfinals before an emotional 7-4 semifinal win over Chaminade-Julienne's Jeffrey Blair on Saturday night. "This is the best moment of my life, the best feeling I've ever felt," said Sanchez after the semifinal win. "Football is my sport, but doing this by myself, nobody else can dictate what I do. Just me and the good Lord above." Sanchez has 13 Division I football offers. The physical lineman is a force in pads and on the mats. Sanchez scored an early takedown against Blair and stayed on his feet as his father, Jose, watched from the front row above the mat. "He goes for a head and arm, twice actually," Sanchez said. "I countered the one, shot a nice double leg into a body lock. That's the way it was done." Blair does his best work on the mat so Sanchez didn't go there. "I've wrestled him my whole life," Sanchez said. "He likes to go down and roll. We knew we take him down, go to our feet and win this match. He goes down, nah, go neutral. I don't care about the point, he can have it." Sanchez made the most of his first trip to state. He broke his hand in football as a freshman, which affected his wrestling season. Last year, Sanchez found out the day of the district tournament that his mother, Jamie Artip, had died. He tried to wrestle, going 2-2. "It's real emotional for him," Crabtree said. "I'm sure he was wrestling for her. We told him when we looked at the bracket, 'you can be in the finals. You just gotta play it smart and wrestle to the best of your ability.' " Sanchez said he thought about his mother all weekend. "All weekend, every match, when we were back to the hotel," he said. "Pretty much the whole time. I think she's proud of me."