Trojans third at Lyons Round Robin

In the final tune-up prior to this week?s league tournament, the Hillsboro wrest?ling team placed third at the seven-school Lyons Round Robin Invitational on Saturday.

Lyons won the event with 159 points, followed by Min?ne?apolis 196, Hillsboro 108, Wichita East 139, Hutchin?son 101, St. John?s Military 69 and Ell-Saline 55.

Five Trojans finished among the top three in their respective weight classes.

Levi Mendoza led the way with a 5-0 record to win the title at 195 pounds. Dawson Jost was declared the winner at 220 with a 3-2 record based on tie-breaker criteria with two other wrestlers.

?We are very happy for Levi in winning his first tournament this season,? said coach Scott O?Hare. ?He had a very dominating tournament, including four wins by fall and a 7-0 decision over (Kelcey) Kroetsch from Lyons.?

Mendoza had lost to Kroetsch in December at the Hesston Tournament. With a 25-7 season record, the senior is ranked No. 6 in Class 3-2-1A.

Travis King was the runner-up at 138 pounds with a 3-1 record. King wrestled ?very aggressively? and picked up a couple fast pins in his last two matches, according to O?Hare.

Ian Alumbaugh was the runner-up at 160 pounds with a 2-1 record and Colin Settled placed third in the same class at 1-2.

Franklin Jost, who went 2-2 at 182 pounds, also placed third.

?Franklin got off to a slow start, but came back with two nice wins to finish in the top three,? O?Hare said.

Also competing for Hills?boro were Mac Bartel, 1-4 to place seventh at 113 pounds; William Spaich, 1-4 for fifth at 120; Jaden Priest, 0-3 for fourth at 152; and Lane Flaming, sixth with an 0-5 record at 170.

?The roller coaster of emotions continues this winter,? O?Hare said about the day. ?We seem to reflect on every tournament this season with similar answers to the same questions. Did we see improvement? Yes. What areas do we need to improve more on? Positioning, explosiveness and toughness.?

Coming?Hillsboro will travel to Hesston Saturday for the Central Kansas League tournament.

?We definitely have to make some big strides these next two weeks in preparation for our very solid CKL tournament and the regional tournament coming up the following week,? O?Hare said. ?Our goals is to be competing our best at the regional tournament.?

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