Junior High Places 3rd in NWKL Tourney
The St. Francis High School Gymnasium was filled with wrestling fans on President's Day, February 18th, when St. Francis hosted the Northwest Kansas League Junior High Wrestling Tournament. Six NWKL teams participated in the tournament including: Decatur Community, Greeley County, Hoxie, Rawlins County, St. Francis, and Wichita County. The tournament was wrestled as a round-robin tournament with each wrestler wrestling every other competitor in the same weight class. If a weight class contained only two wrestlers, the wrestlers competed in a "best-of-three" format. If the same wrestler won both of the first two matches, the third match was not wrestled and the "better" win was recorded as the championship result. Several junior varsity "exhibition" matches were also wrestled during the day, but were not part of the team competition.
Decatur Community won the team championship scoring 144 points. Rawlins County placed a close second with 141.5. The St. Francis Indians placed third in the tournament earning 123 points. Fourth went to Wichita County (75 points). fifth to Hoxie (44.5 points), and sixth to Greeley County (9 points).
Coach Loyd stated, "We had our junior high league tournament this last Monday. As a whole we competed fairly well. We placed 3rd out of 6 teams and going into it I thought we had a legitimate shot at being league champions, which was our goal, and we were close to achieving it. The emotions are kind of mixed; we had some very good matches and some matches we just didn’t wrestle very well. I don’t know if having the tournament on Monday plays into performances or not, I don’t know, but we cannot make excuses."
Individual match results for the St. Francis wrestlers are below.
80 - Matt Leibbrandt won the championship at 80 pounds defeating Joe Ridder of Wichita County by fall in 23 seconds.
86 - Coy Cassaw placed 2nd. Coy won his first match against John Bierman of Wichita County by a 12-0 major decision. Coy lost by fall (1:30) to Kel Grafel of Decatur Community.
98 - Kenny Leibbrandt placed 2nd in the tournament. Kenny won by fall (0:33) over Kole Breth of Decatur Community, but lost to Braden Leitner of Rawlins County by 1-0 decision.
104 - Tate Busse placed 3rd. Tate was defeated by Dylan Dulany of Rawlins County by fall (3:29). Tate also lost to an undefeated wrestler from Hoxie, Tristan Porsch, by technical fall (17-1).
122 - Luke Lampe earned a second place finish. Luke defeated Kyle Ricke of Greeley County by 13-0 major decision in his first match. Luke then defeated Zach Chavez of Wichita County 3-2. Luke then pinned Maverick Green of Rawlins County in 3:47. Luke lost his final match to Max Diedrich of Decatur Community by a 9-3 decision.
130 - Joel Hill placed third. Joel lost his first match to Jeff Juenemann of Decatur Community by fall (4:00). Joel pinned (1:15) Josh Gallardo of Wichita County in his second match. Cole Sramek of Rawlin County decisioned Joel 5-0. Joel defeated Tyler King of Hoxie by 7-4 decision in his final match.
138 - Taylor Rogers placed third. Taylor lost a 7-5 decision to Juan Alvarado of Wichita County in his first match. Taylor pinned (1:25) Gavin Kleymann of Greeley County in his second contest. Cade Wurm of Decatur Community defeated Taylor by fall (1:38). In his final match, Taylor won a 6-1 decision over Sawyer Skolout of Rawlins County.
145 - Dalton Straub was pinned (1:55) by Kolton Sheppard of Wichita County. Dalton then lost to Jose Flores of Rawlins County by fall (0:43). Dalton won a 17-8 major decision over Braden Beagley of Hoxie to place third.
170 - Jeremiah Neitzel lost by fall to Louie Zorn of Rawlins County in 1:27. Jeremiah placed second.
182 - Martin Beikman placed second by pinning (1:45) Zeke Jimenez of Decatur Community in his first match and losing by fall (0:57) to Will Crouse of Rawlins County in the final match.
275 - Trayton Doyle was pinned (0:16) by Quinton Cook of Decatur Community in his first match of the day. Trayton again faced Cook in his second match winning by forfeit. Trayton earned an injury default win over Cook in the "rubber" match to win the 275 pound championship.
Coach Loyd commented, "This group of young men has been a lot of fun to work with. It was a pure joy getting to know each one of them, and I commend you as parents of these kids for doing a great job of raising them. Every one of them has a good work ethic and did everything that Coach Buffington and I asked them to do to the best of their ability. I know a lot of them had goals to be a league champion and came up just a bit short, but it happens. I always think of what Coach Gabel always use to say to us at the end of each season. He always said that you cannot judge a season based off of one tournament. Meaning a lot of these kids wanted to be league champions and may be real upset with themselves because they didn’t attain that goal. However, they cannot judge this season and the success that they had just on this one league tournament. Every kid on this team is leaps and bounds better than they were 7 weeks ago and, I believe the fans/parents that followed them throughout the season, and the wrestlers themselves, can agree with that. It’s important for them to focus on that and to remember just how much they have improved. I’m very proud of each of them, and I’m really looking forward to watching them develop and improve in every aspect of their life."
Individual placings in the NWKL tournament are listed below:
80 Pounds -- 1st - Matt Leibbrandt SF; 2nd Joe Ridder WC
86 Pounds -- 1st - Kel Grafel DC; 2nd Coy Cassaw SF; 3rd John Bierman WC
92 Pounds -- 1st - Jorge Gallegos WC; 2nd Andrew Macki DC
98 Pounds -- 1st - Braden Leitner RC; 2nd Kenny Leibbrandt SF; 3rd Kole Breth DC
104 Pounds -- 1st - Tristan Porsch HO; 2nd Dylan Dulany RC; 3rd Tate Busse SF
110 Pounds -- 1st - Latham Schwartz HO; 2nd Ryan Wolters RC
116 Pounds -- 1st - Skyler Lawson RC
122 Pounds -- 1st - Max Diedrick DC; 2nd Luke Lampe SF; 3rd Kyle Ricke GC; 4th Zach Chavez WC
130 Pounds -- 1st - Cole Sramek RC; 2nd Jeff Juenemann DC; 3rd Joel Hill SF; 4th Josh Gallardo WC
138 Pounds -- 1st - Cade Wurm DC; 2nd Juan Alvardo WC; 3rd Taylor Rogers SF; 4th Sawyer Skolout RC
146 Pounds -- 1st - Kolton Sheppard WC; 2nd Jose Flores RC; 3rd Dalton Straub SF; 4th Braden Beagley HO
154 Pounds -- 1st - Tabor Erickson DC; 2nd Will Ginther RC; 3rd Luke Schippers HO
162 Pounds -- 1st - Dayton Kempt DC; 2nd Tyler Beckman RC
170 Pounds -- 1st - Louie Zorn RC; 2nd Jeremiah Neitzel SF
182 Pounds -- 1st - Will Crouse RC; 2nd Martin Beikman SF; 3rd Zeke Jimenez DC
275 Pounds -- 1st - Trayton Doyle SF; 2nd Quinton Cook DC
Click the photos to see more photos!
