Rising Sun senior Tyler Jones had to get lighter before he could get stronger. Starting the year in the 170-pound weight class, Jones struggled at times but began to blossom after dropping down to 160. His hard work culminated with a region title Saturday. "I was nervous that it wasn't going to happen," Jones said. "I started off at 170 and did pretty rough there. Once I started bumping down I felt a lot stronger and more technical. Cutting down weight earlier in the season to now definitely benefitted me. I'm just happy to win regionals." Jones defeated Eddie Burgstahler of Easton 8-6 in the title bout. "I knew he was the first seed," said Jones. "Everybody tells me not to worry about rankings and seedings and what not, but I had a little bit of cautiousness going into the match because I knew he was good, he was a senior, too. He was strong. He was definitely strong. We got a lot of stalemates. Me being more technical kind of canceled out his strength, if that makes sense. We were both gassed. We were both tired at the end. I was nervous that I was going to run out of gas and let something up at the end, but I was glad." Jones built a 7-2 lead in the second period and held an 8-5 edge heading into the final two minutes. Burgstahler escaped with 40 seconds to go, but Jones remained aggressive instead of sitting back and waiting for Burgstahler to attack. "I knew that's what I had to do," Jones said. "I knew I had to keep hitting takedowns. I came into the tournament thinking staying on my feet would be the best thing to win and that's why I tried not to stay on top too much. Stuff like that happens where I get reversed. Neutral is where I took him down the most, where I score the most points so I thought that's what I should do the whole match." Jones is making a second straight trip to states. "I'm excited because I took third [at the region tournament] last year," Jones said. "It put me down in the bracket, so hopefully I'll be higher up on the bracket and get a better chance to go further throughout the tournament." Jones (25-7) will wrestle Owings Mills' Earl Little (21-12) in the first round of states. Comments are closed.
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