Hillsboro 215-pounder John Hein strains to remove himself from the bind Circle’s Kendal Pierce put him in. Hein sustained an upper-body injury during the match and forfeited his remaining matches. Even so, Hein placed sixth out of 13 entrants in his weight class. Andrew Ottoson / Free Press
Although the Hillsboro wrestling team finished second in the two-day, 21-team Halstead Invitational on Saturday, coach Scott O’Hare wasn’t particularly happy with the outcome.
“Although it was nice to finish second as a team in such a large tournament, it turned out to be a rather disappointing weekend,” he said.
“On Saturday, as a team, we lost seven matches by one point, and another one by two points. Although this is bound to happen in tournaments against tough competition, the disappointment is in the fact that we lost those close matches under circumstances where I felt we showed very little courage and determination to get after it enough to win some of those.
“Throughout the tournament, we lost a number of matches against wrestlers we had previously beaten,” O’Hare added. “This is very disappointing and shows that we have become a little complacent after some early success.”
The Trojans got off to a strong start on Friday, winning 10 of their first 11 matches in the afternoon.
In the quarterfinals that evening, O’Hare said the wrestlers that should have advanced, did so.
But when action resumed on Saturday morning, the momentum changed, O’Hare said.
“As a team we got off to a very slow start in the consolation rounds, and it carried over into the championship semifinals, where (Jacob) Yoder was the only Trojan wrestler to advance into the championship finals.”
Yoder’s second-place finish at 189 was Hillsboro’s best individual performance. Nicholas Mueller took home third at 135, Tyler Jones and Grady Stultz were fourth at 145 and 152, respectively, Frankie Marin was fifth at 171 and John Hein finished sixth at 215 after having to forfeit his final two matches because of an injury.
Also competing for HHS were: Alex Jost, 0-2 at 112, Aaron Bina, 1-2 at 119; Darren Mueller 2-2 at 125, Dylan Delk, 1-2 at 130, Jared King, 2-2 at 140, Zach Jost, 2-2 at 160, and CJ Shaw, 1-2 at 285.
As a team, the Trojans accumulated 117 points to finish behind Smoky Valley with 152 and ahead of Marion with 1141⁄2.
Coming—Hillsboro will host a double dual Thursday with Lyons and Nickerson starting at 5:30 p.m. in the middle school gym.
On Saturday, the varsity will compete at a tournament in Eureka. Matches begin at 9 a.m.
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