Indians 6th At Western Kansas Challenge
The Indian wrestling team competed in the Western Kansas Challenge Tournament in Smith Center on Saturday, January 28th. The tournament involved teams from the Northwest Kansas League and the Mid-Continent League. Fourteen teams participated in the tournament. Phillipsburg won the tournament championship with 149 1/2 points. Decatur Community and Smith Center were close behind with 141 and 140 points respectively. Point totals and placings for the other teams were: 4th - Plainville 126; 5th - Norton 112 1/2; 6th - St. Francis 101; 7th - Hoxie 84; 8th - Oakley 74; 9th - Rawlins County 63; 10th - Ellis 57; 11th - Hill City 30; 12th - Trego Community 18; 13th - Stockton 16; and 14th - Osborne 7.
The Indians wrestled well, and nine Indians placed in the top six positions. A list of the placing wrestlers is below.
113 Keller 3rd
132 A White 4th
138 Leibbrandt 3rd
145 E Nelson 5th
152 Wolaver 2nd
160 Queen 6th
182 Gienger 2nd
220 Nelson 5th
285 Blanka 5th
Coach Nathan Smith had made the following comments on the tournament, "Had some kids wrestle really good this weekend. Casey Keller had a exciting weekend going 3-1 on Saturday. Matt White at 120 had a tough draw going 0-2. Austin White at 132 lost in the semi finals, won his next match and lost a heartbreaker for 3rd. Mikey Leibbrandt is closing the gap on the best 138lbers in 321A. Mikey went 3-1 on the weekend losing to Dusin of Phillipsburg 4-1 in the semi finals before battling back to earn 3rd place. Erik Nelson went 1-2 at 145 earning 5th place. Dylan Wolaver finished 1-1 at 152 losing a close match in the finals to Wiesner of Plainville. At 160 Derek Queen did a nice job of getting to the medal round with a pin over Naegele of Osborne and finished 6th. At 182 Zach Gienger defeated the #6 ranked wrestler in the state to advance to the finals. Both Paul Nelson and Shakota Blanka finished 5th going 1-2."
"The tournament ran great. It was nice to have full brackets in most cases with quality kids. We won some big matches that should help when we go to seed our kids in two weeks at Lakin for the regional tournament. We finished 6th overall and were the 2nd highest finisher from the NWKL. This week we should get Lane Hoffman and Thomas Douthit back. With them, our line-up is slowly getting back to full. Logan Lampe, Matt Howell, Blaine Guggenmos, and Jon Hoard are continuing to recover from injuries and hopefully will be back by the end of the season."
