Indians Wrestle in Atwood Invitational
The St. Francis Indian wrestling team competed in the Rawlins County Invitational on Saturday, January 20. The Indians competed well, earning a third place team finish in the 11-team tournament. St. Francis had two champions (Tiernan Poling and Trayton Doyle). Tyson Poling and Cody Baxter finished second. Luin Norris earned a third-place finish.
Wray dominated the tournament scoring 251 team points. Rawlins County was a distant second with 113. St. Francis earned 96 points to finish third. Other team placings were: 4th - Sedgwick County - Fleming 64, 5th - Leoti -Wichita County 57, Colby 50.5, 7th - Trego Community 43, 8th - Garden City 39.5, 9th - Oberlin - Decatur Community 28.5, 10th - Goodland 12, and 11th - Brewster 0.
Individual Results for St. Francis wrestlers
Perla Yanez: won by a 4-3 decision over Schafer, Goodland; lost by a fall to Martinez, Sedgwick County-Fleming; lost by a 15-0 technical fall to Sullivan, Garden City.
Aaron White: lost by a fall to Martinez, Sedgwick County-Fleming; won by a fall over Chapman, Trego Community; lost by a fall to Collins, Wray; lost by a 6-4 decision to Hanson, Rawlins County.
Tiernan Poling (Champion): won by a fall over Penny, Brewster; won by a fall over Castillo, Leoti-Wichita County; won by a fall over Penny, Brewster; won by a fall over Collins, Wray; won by a fall over Ketterl, Decatur Community.
Tyson Poling (Runner-Up): lost by fall to Gardner, Leoti-Wichita County; won by fall over Baltazar, Garden City; won by a 4-1 decision over Schritter, Colby; lost by fall to Gardner, Leoti-Wichita County.
Cody Baxter (Runner-Up): won by a fall over Buccelli, Sedgwick County-Fleming; won by fall over Castillo, Leoti-Wichita County; won by fall over Castillo, Leoti-Wichita County; won by a 8-0 major decision over Domsch, Rawlins County; lost by fall to Huerta, Wray.
Luin Norris (Placed 3rd): won by a fall over Holub, Goodland; won by a fall over Rangel, Wray; lost by fall to Berghuis, Wray; won by a fall over Hernandez, Leoti-Wichita County; lost by a fall to Crouse, Rawlins County.
Trayton Doyle (Champion): won by a fall over Davis, Sedgwick County-Fleming; won by a fall over Villalobos, Leoti-Wichita County; won by a fall over Mantay, Goodland; won by a fall over Molina, Wray; won by a fall over Villalobos, Leoti-Wichita County; won by a fall over May, Goodland; won by fall over Colgan, Rawlins County.
Coaches Awards
Practice Wrestler: Aaron White
Coach’s Award: Tyson Poling
Most Outstanding Wrestlers: Tiernan Poling and Trayton Doyle- both went undefeated this weekend pinning everyone they faced.
Coach Dylan Loyd submitted the following comments.
"The St. Francis wrestling team continues to push through their season. This past weekend we competed in the Buffalo Invitational in Atwood. Friday night we traveled over to Atwood as well to compete in a round robin. Right now, it’s crucial for our kids to get mat time. Each time they step on the mat they get better and that’s what we want right now. This was a good weekend for many of them as we have guys who are starting to turn the corner. We are vastly approaching our postseason and it’s crucial we improve each week as we get closer to regionals. We have guys who still are figuring out how good they are, and how good they can be; which can be frustrating but, I believe that we can get it figured out here in the next couple of weeks. The goal each week is to take steps forward, no steps back. I believe for the most part we are doing that, we still have mental breakdowns in matches but, the mistakes are being cleaned up. We preach the importance of expecting your opponent’s best every match, you should never look ahead or behind but, focus on the now, focus on what’s right in front of you. This is hard to do with regionals approaching but, it’s vital for development. I look forward to this group continuing to put it all out on the line. Individually, Perla Yanez continues to get better each week. You watch her from match to match and you can see a lot of improvement. She really has a good grasp of technique and this sport and the type of wrestler she wants to be. She’s got a good grasp of the positions she wants to be in and the technique she feels best at and she gets to it. Every time she steps out on the mat she battles; it doesn’t matter if she’s been beat by the same opponent she will battle. I really admire her for that, this is a tough sport and never once do you hear her complain. Aaron White had a good weekend. He lost a couple of matches I know he wants back and it took them pretty hard. Which I believe is good to see because it shows how important this is to him. Aaron has come a long way in the last year. Technically he has improved tremendously and he is getting better and it’s obvious. He cleans up a couple of minor mistakes and cleans up some finishes on his feet and he is probably wrestling in the finals this past weekend. Tyson Poling had a very important weekend for him. He needed this to help justify the time and effort he has put into this season. I know up to this point Tyson hasn’t quite had the season that he would have liked coming in. He has competed at a very deep and tough weight class and has done all that we ask. For him to get second this weekend and place in his first varsity tournament was big for him.He has all the tools it takes to be very successful in this sport. He doesn’t quite have that belief in himself yet, but I believe the more he continues to invest it will come. Great weekend for him! Tiernan Poling really had himself a very dominant weekend pinning everyone he wrestled. It’s always fun to look back because exactly a year ago at this same tournament is where I felt like Tiernan really started figuring things out. You fast forward to now and he really has found his identity as a wrestler and what a year he has had up to this point. He really is on a roll and he is only getting better. He really has put the time in and is very disciplined in fixing mistakes and never looking ahead. He’s firing on all cylinders right now and he’s going to be a lot of fun to watch as we get rolling here these last couple of weeks. Cody Baxter looked really good this whole weekend up until the last two minutes of his final’s match. We say it a lot about how good this kid is right now and I don’t know if he knows it yet himself. Once he figures it out I really don’t know how high his ceiling is because he truly has everything it takes to be a phenomenal wrestler. He really just needs to relax and open up and not put pressure on himself. I think that’s his biggest obstacle right now is avoiding that. But, he continues to do some special things on a wrestling mat that you generally don’t see kids be able to do. He was able to win a couple of redemption matches against kids who had previously beat him earlier this year and those are huge to have this time of year. Luin Norris had an up and down weekend which you hate to see this time of year but, they happen. I believe he was the best wrestler in his bracket this past weekend so you hate to see him finish third. One of his losses, he was ahead in the match and just made a big mistake getting his hips to far forward and ended up getting sucked back to his back. His last match was against a kid who technically isn’t as gifted as Luin, but the kid is aggressive and I think it took Luin off guard. It’s tough to suffer those setbacks but, its better to have these setback’s now than 3-4 weeks from now. He needs to keep working hard and really believe in his abilities as a wrestler. Tayton Doyle wrestled well this weekend and really was very dominant. He continues to gain more confidence in his shots and come end of the season he is going to need that confidence in order to accomplish the goals he wants to attain. You don’t see many kids with his ability and his success work as hard as he does. It’s been a joy to have him back on the mat this season. It’s been a tough year for him battling injuries, sickness, etc. but that’s only made him more hungry and made him work that much harder. With every setback good things can come from them and that’s the mentality he has to have right now. He will be ready to go come crunch time!
This upcoming Friday we will be traveling to Wakeeney to compete in the Tournament Of Champions. This tournament has always been a good one. There is a lot of great wrestling and great wrestlers here from both the MCL and NWKL leagues. Both leagues have a lot of tradition and it’s fun to be a part of that. This tournament will really give us a good idea of where we are at as our regional tournament will be very similar. I look forward to watching these young men compete. We stress everyday about the importance of focusing on the things that you can control and to simply just work hard to get better."
The Indians will wrestle in Wakeeney on Friday, January 26.
