Wrestling: Bulldogs grapple to ninth place at Mascoutah
The Highland High School wrestling team was led by the gold-medal performance of junior Trent Rakers, who powered the Bulldogs to a ninth-place finish out of the 30 competing squads at the ultra-competitive 46th annual Mascoutah Invitational Wrestling Tournament.
Rakers beat up on all four of his opponents to hammer out the individual championship at 160 pounds, punctuated by picking up one of the few pins in the championship matches when he flipped and covered Murphysboro’s Brock Barnes at 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
Rakers opened the Mascoutah tourney by scoring a fall over Alton’s Nolan Wosczynski at the 1:04 mark. Next in the quarterfinals, the Highland junior racked up a 15-0 technical fall over Jamonte Rush of Carbondale.
Then in the semifinals, Rakers pounded out a 16-4 major decision over O’Fallon’s Nick Kelly to advance to the title match, where he smothered Barnes to keep his season record unblemished at 12-0 and move his career total to 82 victories. He moved to within 52 wins of Tanner Farmer’s school record total of 134 victories set.
Bulldogs coach Terry Ohren thinks Rakers has an excellent opportunity to break Farmer’s mark.
“He has to stay healthy, but I’m confident he can do it,” Ohren said. “He’s been looking great. I think he matured a little. He’s a junior now and he lifted a lot of weights over the summer.”
The pin was the eighth this season for Rakers, who also took the 160-pound title at the Civic Memorial Tournament earlier this month before going to beat both of his opponents from O’Fallon and Civic Memorial in a triangle team match on Tuesday of last week in Bethalto.
“(Teammate) Brody (Kirsch) practices with me and some of the other (heavier) guys and that keeps me in shape,” Rakers said. “It helps keep me going.”
Kirsch, a senior, was one of three other Highland wrestlers, in addition to Rakers, to place as individuals.
Freshman Colton Brown went 4-2 and collected fifth place at 120 pounds with a pin of Austin Murphy of Jacksonville at the 1:31 mark.
Kirsch (170 pounds) and junior Jacob Mitchell (126) both earned sixth-place finishes in their respective weight classes. Kirsch and Mitchell both joined Rakers in winning their two matches in the triangle match at Civic Memorial on Tuesday of last week.
If ever there was an example of a “team champion” the O’Fallon Panthers displayed it at the tourney. O’Fallon High did not take home a single individual title, but collectively the Panthers were the best on Saturday after nipping Southwestern Conference rival Collinsville, 271.50 to 246, to win the team title at the 30-team event at Mascoutah High School.
O’Fallon had just two second-place finishers, but had five wrestlers finish third and two more in fourth. All total, O’Fallon had a wrestler finish eighth or better in 13 of 14 weight classes. It only missed at 126, and that was due to an injury.
Senior Alex Williams placed second in the 120-pound weight class and Alec Ziegler (106) also earned a second-place medal to lead a balanced Panthers lineup.
The Panthers snapped Alton’s two-year run of team titles. It did the same thing three years ago when in 2012 it broke the Redbirds’ then two-year winning streak. In the past six years, Alton and O’Fallon have dominated the team competition, with the Redbirds winning it four times and O’Fallon taking it on the other two occasions.
In addition to the two second place wrestlers, O’Fallon also got third place finishes from Alex Fulton (113), Jack Bond (152), Nick Kelly (160), Mason Hewitt (182) and Kobey Bosworth (195).
Collinsville was led by champions Jevon Pargo (120) and Derron Miller (195).
In addition to the titles won by Pargo and Miller, Collinsville also had a pair of runner-up finishes in Cole Zabala (138) and Aaron Engle (145).
Two-time defending champion Alton (198), Carbondale (186) and Murphysboro (153) rounded out the top-five teams.
Other notable finishes were Triad’s seventh-place effort with 135.50 points, Waterloo one spot behind Highland in 10th place at 122.50 points, Mascoutah in 12th place with 108 points and Civic Memorial in 24th place with 53 points.
Triad was powered by seniors Cole Witzig (182) and Merik Fulton (132), who teamed up to remain undefeated by winning championships in their respective weight divisions while also sharing the honor as the most outstanding wrestlers of the tournament.
Witzig, last year’s IHSA Class 2A State Tournament runner-up, defeated Keonta Holmes of Alton 6-1 for the title at 182.
“He (Holmes) is a big strong wrestler and we knew that going in,” Witzig said. “The key was to wrestle a very technically sound match. I did that.”
Also in the tourney, Witzig pinned Jacksonville’s Gavin Smith in 1:23, scored a 17-2 technical fall over Marion’s Jeremy Kragness and won an 8-1 decision over Civic Memorial’s Jordan Williams to advance to the championship match. Witzig stayed undefeated at 14-0 for the season.
Fulton kept his perfect record intact at 15-0 at 132 after pulling out a hard-earned 1-0 triumph over Connor Broyles of Alton in the title bout.
Also in the tourney, Fulton needed just 42 seconds to pin Patrick Thompson of Macoutah before going on to earn a technical fall over Tucker Overton of Mattoon with three seconds left in the match and then scoring an 11-3 major decision over Jake Blaha of Collinsville to reach the final.
Also placing for Triad at the Mascoutah tourney were senior Sam Donavon, seventh place at 145; sophomore Kaleb Wolverton, seventh at 170; and freshman Tanner Durrell, eighth at 126.
Another wrestler keeping his perfect season going was Belleville East senior DeWayne Hill, who improved to 23-0 in the 220-pound weight class with a 7-3 win over Garrette Benson of Mattoon in the final.
This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 5:56 AM with the headline "Wrestling: Bulldogs grapple to ninth place at Mascoutah."