The kid ran out of memory, it turns out, at about the same rate he ran out of breath. And so pardon Bishop Dwenger wrestler David Obergfell for drawing a blank trying to remember who he’d lost to earlier in the long evening Friday.
“When I lost my matches to Northrop and … Northrop and …” he began.
A pause.
“I just can’t remember,” Obergfell went on. “So winded right now.”
No problem. Because when it got down to cases at the SAC Holiday Dual Wrestling Meet, no one had any problem remembering what he did in the last match of the night.
With the rest of the Dwenger and Snider wrestlers surrounding the mat, Obergfell finally got Snider’s Lamont Carpenter on his back at the 3:40 mark of their 113-pound showdown, and that was that. The pinfall sealed it for the host Saints, 37-33, in the championship round of the annual meet.
It was the culmination of a night of cliffhanging for Dwenger, which won all four of its matches but needed the last match of the night to beat Northrop (36-31), Concordia (35-33) and Snider.
“We had to have a win all of those three rounds to pull it out,” Dwenger coach John Tone said. “And a different kid each time stepped up to the plate and came up with a great win.”
Last but hardly least among them was Obergfell, one of the smaller guys out there. But as the Saints and Panthers swapped crucial victories, it became increasingly clear that the little guy was going to have to shoulder the biggest load of all.
“I told the kid a couple matches ahead, ‘It’s going to come down to you,’ ” Tone said. “I said, ‘It’s your turn to step up.’ ”
And his response?
“He said, ‘I’m ready. I’m ready, Coach.’ And I said, ‘I know you are.’ ”
That’s not exactly the way Obergfell remembers it.
“I said, ‘Coach, I’ll try my best and I’ll come back with a victory,’ ” he said.
Even so, it wasn’t until Luis Marquez of Snider closed out Alex Bruns 16-2 at 106 pounds that Obergfell realized it truly had come down to him.
“When all the wrestling team came over, I just knew it was up to me,” he said. “And I just got it through my and head and thought, ‘I’ve got to get this.’ ”
In addition to Obergfell, the Saints got wins from Louis Garrett (120), Jordan Bly (132), Logan Parrish (138), Jon Hake (160), C.J. Bostwick (170), Ben Evans (182) and Shawn Ryan (185).
Garrett, Parrish and Evans won by fall.
Snider, which won all three of its preliminary matches, trailed 28-16 after Evans’ pin at 182 but won three of the next four weight classes, two by fall, to take it to the end.