Check out the video that goes along with this post.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all and especially to Granville 145-pounder Kurt Ehntholt for being such a good boy. I’m not being sarcastic, either.
After the Lions’ tourney Saturday Santa should be bringing Kurt everything he wants because he’s been very, very good.
In the finals Kurt took on Max Flynn from Vergennes in one of the most exciting finals I’ve seen in a long time, but not all for good reasons.
During the first period Kurt threw Flynn, who reacted by head-butting the Granville wrestler as he came up off the mat. The Vermont wrestler proceeded to have an extremely emotional reaction, which I did not catch on video, unfortunately.
What followed was a match much closer to boxing than wrestling at times. Flynn used a number of open handed – there’s really nothing else to call them – jabs, into the face of Ehntholt, as well as forearms and hockey-style face washes. While Ehntholt was not an innocent player he avoided responding in kind for the most part and that is why I think the match continued.
The match was stopped several times and both (I want to say fighters) wrestlers were warned, but the conduct of Flynn and his coaches really had the home crowd roaring and actually ended with one spectator being told to leave.
The reason I say Kurt did such a good job was after the warnings Flynn continued with the open handed striking and general rough play while Ehntholt kept his cool and let his wrestling do the talking.
Kurt prevailed in the match somewhat easily as Flynn scored most of his points when Ehntholt let him escape to take him down again. Another good example of a Granville student athlete representing the school well.
That match could easily have degenerated into fisticuffs and a pair of disqualifications but calmer heads prevailed on the Golden Horde side, yielding the win.
I spoke with a few people after the match who said they had been surprised when the match continued and did not result in at least one disqualification, much of the credit for the match finishing out had to go to the Horde coaching staff who kept their wrestler’s head in the game and Ehntholt for showing self control in a tough spot.
