2006-07 Wrestling: District Tournament; three advance to state

Gallatin’s seventh place team finish in Saturday’s Class 1, District 4 Wrestling Tournament produced three qualifiers for this weekend’s MSHSAA Wrestling Championships, to be held Thursday through Saturday in Mizzou Arena on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus.

With hopes of getting six or seven wrestlers to the state tournament, Saturday’s outcome was something of a disappointment to the Bulldogs.

"We had some heartbreaking losses," said Coach Phillip Limb. "Terrill Wood, Dale Curtis, Riley Rains and Bradley Jones all lost bubble matches to go to state," he added. "As far as the overall picture, things did not go our way."

Freshman Levi Michener saw his 32-match winning streak come to an end in the championship match of the 103-pound weight class. Michener lost a hard-fought decision to Brookfield freshman Marshal Mears, 8-3, in the title match. He will face Marceline’s Matthew Smith, a 26-7 freshman, in first round state action.

"As far as state goes, Levi looks like he is in a better position on the state bracket due to his loss," said Limb. "I know Levi’s goal is to make it to the state finals," he added. "I have tried to find old school wrestling records, and have not had much luck. I believe that Levi’s streak is probably a record," he said. "I know Bill Eaton went 27-0 or something like that."

Cody Selby scored a major decision, 13-0, over Tarkio’s Tyler McIntosh to finish third at district in the 135-pound class. He will face Jacob Hoagland, Knob Noster, a 23-5 junior, at the state meet.

"Cody impressed me with his control in the district tournament," his coach stated. "He lost a close match to Connor Kellerstrass of Cameron in the semifinals."

Heavyweight Logan Corwin qualified for the state tournament with a little bit of a revenge factor. He lost to Rock Port’s Devon Perry on Friday night, but battled all the way back through the wrestleback rounds and pinned Perry for third place. Corwin, 21-4, will face North Platte senior David Woehrman, 16-6, in Thursday’s first round.

"Logan beat the Maryville kid, who as far as the year goes was 2-1 in matches they wrestled," Limb stated. "Losing the quarterfinals match to Perry made his road tougher, but he came up big in the bubble match," he added. "I believe Cody and Logan both have good shots at medaling."

Bulldog wrestlers had plenty of tough matches on Saturday.

"Dale lost in quadruple overtime," said Limb. "This was the first time I have seen a match go the whole length with the new overtime system," he added. "Dale fought the whole time but just didn’t come out on the winning end."

Wood made it to the semifinal round but met tough opposition from there on.

"Terrill lost due to his size, in my opinion," Limb stated. "He dominated Danner from Maysville, just got caught once," he added. "Terrill is a little over a hundred pounds wringing wet. When you are that little, going up against a kid who can weigh up to 115 pounds with the growth allowance for districts, he gave up a huge disadvantage."

Jones put himself in position to be one match away from qualifying for state. Rains suffered a tough, season-ending loss while one step away from qualifying.

"I hated to see Riley’s career end the way it did," said his coach. "One-sixty is an extremely tough weight class," he offered. "Utt from Cameron keyed on a little mistake that Riley made and took advantage of it. Riley has had a great career. I know that he is really disappointed, but he has nothing to be ashamed of. He will be missed next year."

Also participating at the district tournament for Gallatin were Nathan Gann (119), Casey Alden (125), Matt Atkinson (130), Kyle Croy (140), Andrew Hood (145), Billy Kerns (171) and Jordan Phelps (189).

Wrestling begins Thursday at 10 a.m. with first round matches, followed by first round wrestlebacks.