Winter isn't quite over yet in the Buckeye State, and Ohio State's national-title-contending wrestling team learned that the hard way en route to the tournament.
Roughly half-way to Cleveland, where the Buckeyes will challenge Penn State for the national championship starting Thursday, the team bus came to a standstill after encountering what some estimates suggest was a 70-vehicle pile-up on I-71 in Morrow County.
As reported by The Columbus Dispatch:
All northbound lanes from Route 95 north were closed for three hours before one of three lanes was opened shortly before 7 p.m., said Nancy Burton, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation.
...
A dispatcher said a blinding snow squall came through late afternoon, and the first call of a problem was two vehicles off to the side of the road reported at 4:05 p.m. Within minutes, however, more and more calls came in as vehicles continued slamming into one another.
Two of Ohio State's athletes were among those ensnarled in the dozens of cars crashed on the main route from Columbus to The Land, according to head coach Tom Ryan.
"We're on 71 heading up to Cleveland, and two of our student athletes were heading home to get some dinner with their family. They were in the accident," Ryan told FloWrestling producer Mark Bader. "The officer called us from up ahead, because he talked to one of our guys. We're hoping that we get a police escort out of here, but we're going to be here a while."
Ryan noted that, looking at things on the bright side, the unnamed team members were uninjured, and "it's only Tuesday," so the team had at least 36 hours until weigh-ins, more than enough time to get to Cleveland and get settled... especially once one of Ohio's finest provided an official escort around the melee.
Sure enough, police escort! pic.twitter.com/7eusuNltMy
— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) March 13, 2018
And as with all great hero stories, there was indeed a happy ending, as the Buckeyes arrived just shy of 8 p.m., a couple of hours late, but not much worse for the wear.
Ohio State has arrived in Cleveland... a two hour ride that took four hours pic.twitter.com/0iL7MutSqf
— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) March 13, 2018
The NCAA Tournament gets underway at The Q Thursday at noon.
