By By ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
Benton Harbor suffered a huge loss Thursday night by forfeiting eight matches, giving Niles a 69-9 conference win.
Benton Harbor's head coach Kent Lignell decided to send some of his varsity players down to JV hoping they could compete more and do a little better.
In match one of six, Niles' Josh Henry pinned James Fryson with 40.2 seconds left in the first period putting the Vikings up 6-0. The pin was Henry's 102 win. He reached his 100th win last Saturday at the Berrien County Meet.
Chad Nichols lost to Benton Harbor's Rodney Driver in the third match 10-8. The match went into overtime tied at eight. Driver won it in 13 seconds after taking down Nichols. Driver was runner-up at last week's Berrien County meet. He also has a lot of career wins for the Tigers.
Bryce Flannery and Derek Purcell also did well for the Vikings. Flannery pinned George Piget in the 112-pound match with 4.5 seconds left in the second period.
Purcell pinned Larry Callahan with 0.9 seconds left in the third period of the 130-pound match.
Jake Glueckert, Matt Poehlman, Mason Stephenson, Rodney Leneway, Todd Scansen, Ben Brandstatter, Jesse Sallak and Jake Groves all won by Benton Harbor forfeit.
The Vikings travel cross town to Brandywine on Saturday for the Brandywine Invitational. (See related article for match information)
Niles…………………69
Benton Harbor……..9
103 - Jake Gluekert (N) won by forfeit. 112 - Bryce Flannery (N) pinned George Piget, 3:05. 119 - Matt Poehlman (N) won by forfeit. 125 - Mason Stephenson (N) won by forfeit. 130 - Derek Purcell (N) pinned Larry Callahan, 5:59. 135 - Rodney Leneway (N) won by forfeit. 140 - Todd Scansen (N) won by forfeit. 145 - Ben Brandstatter (N) won by forfeit. 152 -Jesse Sallak (N) won by forfeit. 160 - Dan Lawson (N) pinned Anthony Williams, 3:44. 171 - Jake Groves (N) won by forfeit. 189 - Josh Henry (N) pinned James Fryson, 1:19. 215 - Joel Ealy (N) dec. Keenan Edward, 9-5. 275 - Rodney Drivers (BH) dec. Chad Nichols, 10-8.