Beavers repeat as Classic champions

There were no major surprises at the Scott City Classic on Saturday.

As expected, the Beavers won their eighth consecutive team title and 12th in the past 13 years. And it was no surprise that the Beavers had four tournament champions.

However, a few surprises wouldn’t have bothered head coach Jon Lippelmann.

“You could say that we did what we expected to do, which isn’t all bad,” says Lippelmann. “Though a couple more wins might have been nice with respect to regional seeds, or at least giving us some added confidence when we see these same boys later on.”

The tournament became a two horse race between Scott City (202) and Ulysses (179). Both teams had four gold medalists, but the Beavers had more depth in the consolation bracket to pull away from the Tigers in the final round. Eleven of the 14 brackets were six-man round-robins, so much of the tournament scoring wasn’t determined until the last of a weight division’s matches were completed.

One of round-robin exceptions came in the 103-pound division where Scott City’s Clay Mulligan had little trouble extending his unbeaten streak to 20 matches. After a first round fall, he met Jason Perez (Ulysses) in the finals. Perez had wrestled 112-pounds earlier in the season, so this was the first meeting between the two grapplers.

The SCHS sophomore turned Perez to his back twice in the first period while building a 7-0 lead and coasted to a 7-1 win.

Dillon Stucky, who has won 20 of 21 matches since dropping to the 140-pound division, collected falls in each of his first four matches on Saturday, setting up a finals match with Cimarron’s Coulter Craft (12-3). The Scott City senior built a 4-0 cushion after two periods with a takedown and reversal on his way to a 4-1 win.

Dakota Hayes (145) continues to be a pin machine, adding two more to his season total of 20 in 23 matches. The only opponent in the Classic to escape a pin was Lakin’s David Baca, who lost to Hayes (23-0) by a 17-6 major decision in the semi-finals. Hayes returned to form with a second period fall over Tanner Perez (Ulysses) in the championship match.

Luke Hayes (22-3) was never seriously challenged in the 189-pound division, pinning all five of his opponents. Four of those matches were decided by falls in 1:02 or quicker while the fifth fall came in the second period.

The Beavers added six silver medals by Alex Kough (112), Paco Antillon (119), Anthony Gardner (135), Morgan Numrich (152), Calvin Erven (215) and Michael McEachern (285).

Two key matches in the finals involved Antillon and Numrich who faced Ulysses opponents.

Antillon (21-4) lost to Robbie Hines for the second time this season on a 9-1 decision. Antillon only trailed 4-1 going into the final period before giving up a reversal and near-fall.

Likewise, Numrich (20-6), lost a tough 5-4 decision to Josh Rodriguez. Both wrestlers were tied 4-4 going into the final period, but Rodriguez was able to get an escape and avoid a takedown by the SCHS senior.

“That’s the kind of match that can go either way,” Lippelmann said of the Numrich loss. “We’re going to start winning those matches.”

Numrich’s five losses in the 152-pound division have been by a total of eight points.

After losing to Hines by a 7-3 decision in the season opening tournament at Pratt, Lippelmann was hoping for a closer match this time around between the two opponents who will see each other again in the Mid State Activities Association tournament and probably the regional tournament.