Wrestlers Compete in Hays
JV Team in Action in Atwood
The high school wrestlers competed in two competitions on Saturday, January 24. The varsity wrestling team traveled to Hays to compete in the Bob Kuhn Prairie Classic Tournament. The junior varsity wrestlers traveled to Atwood to compete in the Buffalo JV Tournament.
The varsity wrestlers scored 10 points in the Hays Prairie Classic Tournament. The Indians failed to place anyone in the top four medal positions.
Individual Results from Hays:
152 - Justin Pacheco: lost by a 8-0 major decision to Milke, Goodland; won by a fall over Gorney, Weld Central; lost by a fall to Rodriguez, Ulysses.
160 - Luke Lampe: lost by a 16-0 technical fall to Gastineau, Goodland; won by a 6-3 decision over Zahn, Trego; won by an injury default over Buxton, Hays; lost by a 10-5 decision to Truesdale, Riley County.
195 - Ryan Grover: lost by a 7-3 decision to Cox, Oakley; lost by a 10-6 decision to Taylor, TMP.
220 - Kyler Zweygardt: lost by a fall to Funschelle, Maize South; won by a fall over Stowers, Spring Hill; lost by a fall to Delziet, Hays.
285 - Trayton Doyle: lost by a fall to Jirak, Oakley; lost by a 3-1 decision to Ochoa, Ulysses.
Individual JV Results from Atwood:
126 - Connor McBride: won by a forfeit over Binns, Leoti; lost by a 15-0 technical fall to Gutierrez, Garden City; won by a 6-3 decision over Nickell, Garden City; won by a fall over Bjorklund, Tribune-Greeley County; lost by fall to Villa, Colby.
220 - Luin Norris: lost by a fall to Gugelman, Colby; lost by a fall to Reyes, Garden City; lost by a fall to Reyes, Sedgwick County; lost by a fall to Castillo, Leoti-Wichita County; won by a fall over Jimenez, Oberlin.
Coach Loyd shared the following comments on the week's competition, "This weekend we traveled to Hays to compete in the Bob Kuhn Prairie Classic. This is a 2-day tournament where we compete against mostly 5A and 6A schools. I like this tournament due to the fact that we get to wrestle teams that we normally never get to wrestle, and it gives us a good idea to see where we are at. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t get to go down there with our full team just due to the fact that we have a lot of kids out with sickness or injury. Our hope is, come regional time, we will have our team back and ready to compete. These guys work very hard every day, and it’s unfortunate to have to be dealing with this right now, but our focus is to take things one day at a time and to make the proper improvements needed to get us to where we want to go come end of the season. We tell our guys a lot that there are a lot of circumstances that you cannot control, but you can control how to react to controversy and the effort in which you give forth. Right now we are getting better, our kids are getting tougher, and we will continue to work each day to peak when everything is on the line. At a tough tournament like this, how you get put on the bracket can make all the difference in deciding if you will place or not. Unfortunately for us it came down to luck of the draw and none of our guys got very lucky on our draws. Right out of the gate they all had tough matches, and Friday we really didn’t compete at the high level that I had hoped. We had a good meeting Friday with the guys after the tournament was over, we got something’s squared away and Saturday we did a much better job of competing. In these big brackets the thing that’s tough is when you drop a match early in the tournament because it’s a long road back through the backside to place. Everyone of them battled tough and came just short of placing but, we made improvements and that is very important.
Individually going through, Justin Pacheco competed in one of the toughest weights in this tournament with multiple state qualifiers and placers in this bracket. He wrestled well on Saturday, and wrestled a kid who had pinned him just last week to a much closer match and that is encouraging to see the improvements he’s made. Luke Lampe was one match away from placing in this tournament and he did a great job. Wrestling varsity at 160 lbs as a freshman can be a bit intimidating, and I think up to this point he may have questioned whether he belonged or not, but now he should know that he can compete against these guys no matter the age. Ryan Grover wrestled very well. His first match he wrestled a very tough kid from Oakley who had pinned him in 25 seconds just two weeks ago and he lost 7-3 this weekend. He has made so much progress, and it all comes down to how hard this kid works every day. Kyler Zweygardt has had a rough past couple of weeks but, he wrestled very well this weekend. There for awhile I was worried about his confidence but, after watching him wrestle this weekend you can see that he is making gains. Trayton Doyle battled tough this weekend. Friday he didn’t wrestle like he is capable of, and he knows that. However, on Saturday he battled tough and lost a close match to the kid who I believe ended up taking 5th or 6th in this bracket so he was right there. Again, he is another freshman competing at tough weight class battling a lot of upper classmen, and I think he is getting to where he knows he can compete against anyone in this weight class.
We had two wrestlers wrestle in a tournament in Atwood on Saturday. Both guys did a great job competing and going out there and just battling. Connor McBride finished 3-2 on the day and just missed on a medal by one match. This was Connor’s first competition of the season and it has been great to have him back. He only knows one gear and that is to go all out, and in this sport that is a good quality to have. Luin Norris battled tough this weekend and was in every match that he wrestled. Luin’s biggest issue is that he is giving up quite a bit of weight and is competing against men. One thing I love about this kid is all he knows is to give it everything he has. He’s going to be very tough as he is only a freshman because of his willingness to work hard and he never makes an excuse."
The wrestlers will compete in the NWKL/MCL Tournament in Oberlin on Friday, January 31.
