Marion’s five wrestlers finished 13th of 16 teams competing at the Marion County Winter Duals hosted jointly by Marion and Hillsboro Friday. Individually, Marion wrestlers went a combined 13-3 on the day.
“It is really difficult to try to compete in dual tournaments with only five wrestlers,” coach Tyler McMichael said. “If you are going up against a full roster, you are already losing by 54 points with no possible way of making them up. I have already talked to the team, and they understand that duals are mostly out of the question for us but we can do well individually. I measure our success on how well the wrestlers listen to the coaches and if they make adjustments during a match or between matches to get better throughout the night.”
The event featured four, four-team pools, with two pools competing in Marion and two in Hillsboro.
Marion went 0-3 in pool play, losing to eventual champion Clay Center, 54-18; Fredonia, 48-21; and Rock Creek, 42-30.
Following pool play, teams were placed into one of four brackets. As the fourth-place finisher in the Red Pool, Marion opened bracket play against West Elk, fourth place in the Gold Pool, and won, 30-12. That pitted Marion against Remington to compete for 13th place. The Warriors earned a narrow victory, 27-24.
Individually, three Warriors were undefeated: Todd Palic (3-0 at 182 pounds), Charlie Nordquist (3-0 at 220) and Luke Lanning (2-0 at 195). Will Alleven (126) was 3-2, and Forest Slater (106) 2-1.
“I think that we did awesome on Friday night,” McMichael said. “We placed 13th out of 16 with only five kids. The wrestlers showed a lot of grit to keep fighting after being beaten and losing duals.”
Coming—Marion will resume competition after the holiday break at the Norton Duals Jan. 4.
