After examining the landscape of the Division 1 wrestling strength in our last article, “District Disparity – Division 1 Edition“, we now turn our eyes to division 3.
Let’s dive in…
State Team Points
First up – team points scored at the state tournament by District.
The northern districts (Rossford and Perry) are out front of the southern districts (Troy and Harrison).
The northwest Rossford district leads the way with 532 points followed by the northeast Perry district with 423.5.
Moving south, the Troy district comes in with 368 points and Harrison Central 278 points.
Note: a previous version of this article incorrectly showed the Harrison Central district in the Cincinnati area
State Placers
The Rossford district stands alone when it comes to state placers. Their 37 leads the other three districts – who all happen to account for 25 place winners a piece.
Rossford District
The Rossford district leads all districts in both team points and number of state placers.
So, where is this talent coming from?
As you can see from the graphs below – the majority of team points and state placers within the district are coming from the Archbold and Plymouth sectionals.
Archbold Sectional
The Archbold sectional alone accounted for 4 of the top 10 teams at the State tournament:
#4 Archbold, #5 Liberty Center, #6 Delta, and #10 Ayersville
They also tallied 16 total state placers (43% of Rossford district’s total) which included 3 champions, 2 runner-ups, and 1 third place finisher:
Champions: Adam Mattin (106), Brodie Dominique (144), Xander Myers (175)
For reference, each sectional should expect to have 7 state placers if results were evenly distributed.
Plymouth Sectional
The second strongest sectional feeding the Rossford district, Plymouth, had two top ten State team finishers: #2 Edison and #9 Monroeville.
Their individual state place winners were spread out between the following schools:
Edison (4), Monroeville (3), Crestview (2), four teams with (1)
The sectional had 6 top-three finishers at state headed by champions Abe Hermes (113), Max Hermes (120), Ashton Homan (138)
Oak Harbor and Van Buren Sectionals
Oak Harbor had one top 25 school: #25 Oak Harbor (the school) and had a total of 5 state placers
Van Buren’s top state team was #50 Liberty Benton and totaled 3 state placers as a sectional
Perry District
The Berkshire sectional is out front in the Perry district with 182.5 team points and 10 state placers.
The rest of the district talent is fairly evenly spread out across the other three sectionals: Independence, Rootstown, and Northwestern.
Berkshire Sectional
The Berkshire sectional was lead by four top 25 teams – each tallying 2 state placers:
#7 Garfield
#11 Lake Catholic
#12 Beachwood
#14 Perry
#24 Conneaut
Garfield produced champions Hunter Andel (165) and Keegan Sell (190) while Perry (the school) had champion Brock Christian (132)
Overall the Berkshire sectional accounted for 3 champions, 2 runner-ups, and 2 third place finishers.
Independence, Northwestern, and Rootstown Sectionals
Independence slightly outperformed the Northwestern and Rootstown sectionals as the remaining 3 sectionals within the Perry district were fairly even.
You can see from the team scores below that aside from Berkshire holding down the upper echelon, the rest of the top teams are spread evenly across the remaining sectionals.
The three sectionals combined accounted for 2 champions and 4 runner-ups.
Top 15 at State from Perry District
| State Finish | Team | Score | Sectional |
| 7 | Garfield (Garrettsville) | 47.5 | D3 Berkshire |
| 11 | Lake Catholic | 39 | D3 Berkshire |
| 12 | Beachwood | 38 | D3 Berkshire |
| 14 | Perry | 31 | D3 Berkshire |
| 15 | Rootstown | 28.5 | D3 Rootstown |
| 18 | Keystone | 26 | D3 Independence |
| 18 | South Range | 26 | D3 Northwestern |
| 21 | Tuslaw | 25 | D3 Independence |
| 24 | Conneaut | 24 | D3 Berkshire |
| 26 | Mogadore | 22 | D3 Independence |
| 29 | United | 20 | D3 Rootstown |
| 35 | Mapleton | 18 | D3 Northwestern |
| 35 | Chalker | 18 | D3 Rootstown |
| 47 | Columbia | 11 | D3 Independence |
| 47 | Northwestern (West Salem) | 11 | D3 Northwestern |
Troy District
Within the Troy district, the Covington sectional scored 231.5 points compared to a combined 136.5 for the other three sectionals within the districts.
This amounts to 63% of the Districts total state team points.
Covington also accounted for 15 out of 25 total state placers from the Troy district.
Covington Sectional
State team champions Legacy Christian (115.5 pts, 6 placers) and #8 Troy Christian (47 pts, 3 placers) carried the load for the Covington sectional with #18 Miami East and #21 Preble Shawnee also contributing to the sectional strength.
The Covington sectional produced 1 champion (Dillon Campbell), 4 runner-ups, and 3 third place finishers
Blanchester, Versailles, LCC Sectionals
The remaining Troy sectionals combined to produce 1 champion (Eli Criblez), 1 runner-up, and 1 third place finisher
Harrison Central District
While Harrison Central is the weakest district in terms of team points and state placers, they do have one bright spot in the Barnesville Sectional which is the 5th strongest sectional when measured by team points and 6th by state placers.
Barnesville Sectional
The Barnesville sectional was carried largely by #3 Barnesville (the school) with their 76 team points and 5 state placers accounting for a majority of the sectionals performance.
Notable placers from the sectional (and school) are champion Reese Stephens (150) and third place finisher Dakota King (132)
Ridgedale, Heath, and Sandy Valley Sectionals
While combined these three sectionals accounted for 17 state placers, they only had one top-three finisher: runner-up Lucas Thomas (215) from Harrison Central
Thomas dropped a tough overtime decision to Magadore’s Tyler Schellenbarger – featured in our previous article “A Cinderella Story.”
Summary
In summary, the Rossford and Perry districts flexed their muscles at the state tournament. However, the real story comes from the sectional landscape. Archbold, Plymouth (out of Rossford), Berkshire (Perry), and Covington (Troy) were the top performing sectionals, producing a large portion of state accolades in terms of team placement and state place winners.
Supplemental Graphs
