SC has 7 medalists at Garden

Scott City’s 215-pound senior Calvin Erven pins Travis Cary, Roosevelt, Colo., in the consolation semi-finals of the Garden City tournament on Saturday. Erven went on to finish third.

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By Rod Haxton, editor

Perfection is no longer an issue for Scott Community High School wrestlers Clay Mulligan and Dakota Hayes.

The two grapplers were handed their first losses of the season at the extremely tough Rocky Welton Invitational in Garden City last weekend.

But, by no stretch was it a bad weekend for the Beavers.

They took only 12 wrestlers to the tournament with seven finishing in fourth place or better. That was good enough to give SCHS (124 points) a seventh place finish overall in the 21 team field. Ponderosa, Colo. (180.5) narrowly won the team title ahead of Roosevelt, Colo. (179).

“Any time you can do that in a tournament the caliber of Garden City’s, it’s a pretty good weekend,” says head coach Jon Lippelmann.

Not that he wasn’t expecting better.

“I think we had boys tough enough to win a championship, but the competition we were up against was that good. If you make a mistake, or you wrestle less than your best, it’s probably not going to be enough to get you into the finals or win you a championship,” he said.

If there was any disappointment for the head coach, it was qualifying just one wrestler for the finals. Mulligan, a 103-pound freshman, was the only Beaver among six in the semi-finals who claimed a win on Friday evening. It was a tough round for SCHS, who dropped a pair of two-point decisions, a one-point decision and another match in overtime.

“We aren’t wrestling just to stay close,” emphasizes Lippelmann. “We are hopefully teaching these boys that one extra move or a different way of attacking that they need to get past that really tough kid and into the next round.”

However, all of the semi-finalists came back to medal, including third place finishes by Paco Antillon (119) and Calvin Erven (215). Fourth place finishers were Dillon Stucky (140), Morgan Numrich (152) and Luke Hayes (189).

Mulligan Into Finals

Mulligan had what it took to get into the finals with a 6-3 win over Bo Nickel (Rio Rancho, N.M.) in Friday’s semi-finals. The freshman took control of the match with a takedown and near fall in the opening period for a quick 5-0 lead and added a third period escape.

In the championship finals, Mulligan and Jace Lopez (Roosevelt, Colo.) were tied 2-2 late into the second period with the Scott City wrestler riding his opponent for nearly two minutes. However, a hip heist by Lopez allowed him to get a reversal and two-point near fall in the final 10 seconds to take control of the match on his way to a 6-3 win.

“The finals match was disappointing, but I still didn’t wrestle bad over the last couple of days,” Mulligan says. “I made a mistake and I learned from it.”

Mulligan admits that coming into the tournament he was hoping for a top-four finish in the rugged field of Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas teams. While he finished higher than expected, Mulligan (25-1) was also handed his first loss of the season.

“As coach (Kelly Conine) said, that takes the monkey off my back and lets me focus on what needs to be done,” Mulligan says.

A perfect season also came to an end for senior Dakota Hayes (29-2) who dropped a highly anticipated match against Garden City’s Joey Dozier in the semi-finals by a fall and finished with a 7-2 loss to Emporia’s Chase Sanchez. He also had three wins during the weekend, including a pin over an Andale opponent which will help his regional seeding.

“It would have been nice to have an undefeated season, but getting this far before losing my first match is pretty good,” says the 145-pounder, who picked up a fourth place medal. “I came here expecting to see some pretty tough competition and that’s what happened.”

Two Bronze Medals

Antillon was one of Scott City’s hard-luck losers in the championship semi-finals, dropping a 2-1 decision to Adrian Salas (Liberal). Antillon took a 1-0 lead with a second period escape, but Salas claimed the win with a third period reversal.

The SCHS senior bounced back with a 14-2 major decision over Chris Walker (Roosevelt) and closed out the tournament with a 3-0 win against Sam Jones (Ponderosa), scoring with a takedown in the opening period and later adding an escape.

In analyzing his success this season, Antillon (27-6) says it’s due to aggressiveness on his feet.

“I used to wait for someone to shoot and make a mistake. Now I’m going after them and it makes a better match,” says Antillon, who has 32 takedowns this season.

Perhaps one of the bigger surprises for Scott City was the bronze medal performance by Erven who hadn’t made it past the first round of competition the past two years.

“My first goal was to make it to the second day and my second goal was to place,” says the senior.

Not only did he place, but Erven missed advancing to the championship match with a 3-1 loss in the semi-finals to Emporia’s Mark Kolmer, the top-ranked wrestler in Class 5A.

“Last year I wasn’t very aggressive and that’s where I’ve seen a lot of improvement. Sometimes I try to do too much and I get put to my back, but I’ve learned to fight off that.”

That nearly came back to haunt him in the third place match when Erven (24-9) built a 5-2 lead against Pat Martinez (Lamar, Colo.). Not only did he allow Martinez to tie the match at 5-5 in the second period, but Erven was briefly turned to his back while giving up the tying takedown.

Erven avoided giving up back points and quickly reacted with a reversal and fall at the 2:38 mark.

“Calvin still has a few bad habits we’re trying to break, but he’s really elevated his game this year,” Lippelmann says. “We want him to continue to be aggressive and we feel good things will happen.”

Stucky (28-5) had an outstanding tournament that included a 5-3 overtime loss in the semi-finals to Austin Olson (Ponderosa) and in the consolation finals a third period escape was the only scoring in a 1-0 loss to Zach Legino (Roosevelt). Stucky earned a spot in the consolation finals with an escape and takedown in the third period of a 3-1 win over Nick Schwayer (Great Bend).

Numrich (26-8) was bumped into the consolation bracket with a 5-3 loss to Steven Kelly (Ponderosa). A third period escape gave him a 4-3 decision over Trip Hiller (Olathe South) in the consolation semi-finals and in the third place match he lost a 6-1 decision to Emporia’s Andrew Laib, currently ranked No. 5 in Class 5A.

L. Hayes (28-6) was upset in the quarter-finals, 5-3, by Scott Lester (Andale). He came back to pin Hugh McConnell (Newton), ranked No. 6 in Class 5A, and decisioned Dane Myers (Garden City), 4-2, who is ranked No. 4 in Class 6A. In the consolation finals he lost by a 3-2 decision to Gus Marker (Castle View, Co.).