Warriors finish 13th at wrestling meet

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.