Trojans wrestle at Herington

Four of Hillsboro?s 10 wrestlers came away with winning records, including two second-place finishes, at the Herington Invitational Saturday.

Travis King and Levi Mendoza both finished as the runnerup in their respective weight classes to lead the team.

King won his first four matches, two by fall and two by decision, before losing to Dakota Whitely of Abilene in the finals of the 138-pound class.

?Travis was really in control in all four of his matches leading up to the finals and improved his season record to 14-2,? coach Scott O?Hare said.

Mendoza went 4-1, including a win by an injury default, before losing the title match at 195 pounds by a 3-1 decision in overtime to Jacob Stoneberger of Chap?man.

?Levi dominated in his first two matches before facing Christiensen of Abilene in Round 3,? O?Hare said. ?Christiensen was ranked No. 2 in the state in Class 4A coming into the tournament. Levi came away with a great win in triple overtime.

?I?m looking forward to seeing both of these young men continue to progress through the second half of the season.?

Also posting winning records for the day were Jaden Priest (3-2) at 152 pounds and Tristan Don?aldson (3-2) at 132.

?In only his second season of wrestling, things seem to be starting to come together for Jaden,? O?Hare said. ?He is doing a lot of things very well, he has been very coachable, and he has a tremendous work ethic. As he continues to get additional mat time, he will get much better recognizing and reacting in match situations.

?Tristan also did some very nice things in this tournament and picked up nice three wins.?

O?Hare also commended the effort of Mack Bartel, who was 2-2 for the day at 113 pounds.

?He has been wrestling very solid on his feet to this point,? O?Hare said. ?As we get him working more comfortably on the mat, I believe he will have a very solid second half of the season.?

Also competing for Hillsboro were William Spaich (0-4 on the mat) at 120, Kyle Horton (1-4) at 145, Ian Alumbaugh (1-4) at 160, Lane Flaming (2-3) at 170 and Franklin Jost (2-3) at 182.

?Franklin has been very competitive is almost every match he has wrestled,? O?Hare said. ?Technically, he is doing some nice things. He just tends to get in trouble with balance and positioning mistakes. Again, this continues to improve with more mat time.?

As a team, Hillsboro placed ninth among 14 schools with 92 points. Abilene won the team title with 221.5 points.

?Overall, I was pleased with how the guys wrestled and competed coming off Christmas break,? O?Hare said.

Coming?Hillsboro will wrestle Friday and Satur?day at the Halstead Invita?tional. Matches begin at 4 p.m. Friday and resume at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

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