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Tigers, Comets share SEK crown
CHANUTE -- Fort Scott High School claimed a share of its fist Southeast Kansas League wrestling championship in over 30 years here Thursday night. But any feelings of accomplishment were muted by how the Tigers performed in the early bouts of the dual with host Chanute.
The Tigers clinched no worse than a share of the SEK crown -- last won by FSHS in 1974 -- when they beat Columbus in the opening dual of the triangular, 51-27. Chanute kept its hopes of a piece of the pie alive by beating Columbus, 54-18.
In the last dual, although they made a valiant effort, the Tigers couldn't overcome a 36-0 deficit. Chanute ended up winning the dual, 49-31, despite the fact that Fort Scott won six straight matches to get itself back into a position to win.
Fort Scott and Chanute both ended up with 6-1 league records. The Tigers are 11-3 overall while Chanute is 14-3.
Labette County, 8-1 overall, made it a three-way tie when it defeated Pittsburg, 53-19, and Parsons, 60-22, in another triangular Thursday night.
The SEK doesn't break ties and couldn't have broken this one, anyway, LCHS beat Chanute in league competition but the Tigers won when they faced the Grizzlies.
"We're SEK co-champs but I feel like we lost the world," Fort Scott head coach David Brown said. "To be that close to having it outright and then to have things come into play that takes it out of our control. And some things were out of our control tonight."
Fort Scott had to give up two forfeits in the first four matches because no one was available who can wrestle 119 and 125 at weight. The Tigers actually gave up 112 and 125, moving Justin Sharp up to 119 to try and get him a better match-up.
Levi Tweedy was pinned by Kenneth Ornelas at 103 and Sharp was pinned by A.J. Pitts at 119.
"We had a new wrestler (Levi Tweedy) at 103 at the varsity level," Brown said. "He hasn't had a lot of time at it. He wrestled hard, he just doesn't have enough mat time yet.
"Justin Sharp has been sick all week. He's still just really, really ill but he went out and have it what he could. It's just unfortunate he didn't have enough mustard. We had to bump him up to 119 in both matches. Obviously, he's giving up weight and being sick; we needed him to keep off his back and not get pinned and he couldn't keep that from happening."
The Blue Comets kept winning as Lukias Stacy pinned Michael Durossette at 130 and Zach Markham stuck Lee Culbertson at 135.
"Our other weights down low, against Chanute, we needed them to not get pinned but they did," Brown said. "It's unfortunate."
The Tigers weren't out of it yet as their best wrestlers were coming up. And Chanute head coach Andy Albright, a former Tiger who wrestled for Brown, knew that.
"We knew that if we had any chance to win tonight, we had to get rolling in the beginning," Albright said. "We're really solid in our lower weights. We kind of fed off Kenneth today, he did well in both matches. And coach Brown made some moves that were really good moves in order to try to win the dual.
"We knew it was going to come down to 215 and heavyweight. Fort Scott is loaded in the middle weights; they're really solid. And we figured that was the way it's going to be."
The Tiger comeback started off with a highly-anticipated match between Cody Kramer and Chanute's Brad Finley. The match didn't disappoint.
The third period started with a 3-3 tie and Kramer in the down position. But he escaped and then took Finley down for three quick points. It appeared that near the end, Finley got a point as the official determined Kramer was stalling. Finley also posted a late escape but didn't have enough time for a takedown himself.
The match ended in Kramer's favor, 6-5.
"(That was the) second really good match with Brad Finley at 140 with Cody Kramer. This one, it appears that Cody had a better opportunity to control the match. He was taking shots appropriately, getting into position. The takedown differential was big there. It's one of those things, if you can take the guy down, it's pretty well your match."
Next came Cole Pruitt at 145 taking on Nolan Colvin. Pruitt led 7-0 after two periods and built on that lead, finishing with a 14-5 major decision that gave Fort Scott four team points.
"Cole Pruitt wrestled a great match," Brown said. "I thought that one was going to be extremely close. It was one of those 'What's going to happen?' matches. He came out and really dominated a kid who's pretty good."
The next four bouts resulted in Fort Scott pins. Jordan Renfro stuck Derek Markham in 1:32 at 152 pounds. Blake Cox pinned Justin Hansen in 1:48 at 160. Dakota Hall put Garrett Roecker down in 43 seconds at 171. And Dakotah Gettler took care of Damen Hartwig at 189 in 1:07.
Cox, Hall and Gettler were all bumped up one weight class for the night.
Those wins brought the Tigers within 36-31. They could still win the dual with two wins and only one of them needed to be a pin.
The next match pitted Jacob Grant, who was also moving up one class, against Kevin Richard at 215. Grant led 4-3 after one period.
Richard scored a takedown to open the second period. But Grant was able to escape, which tied the bout 5-5 going into the third period.
Grant escaped early and took the lead, fighting off Richard's attempts to maintain control. But Richard made his move with 20 seconds left, scoring a takedown and keeping Grant's left arm pinned up behind him so that he couldn't leverage out of the hold in time.
"Jake's giving up quite a bit of weight there," Brown said. "But with 20 seconds left in the match, he gave up a foolish takedown. Part of that is being tired; conditioning, I think had something to do with it. It's unfortunate that he didn't follow our directions. If he stays away from the tie-up, he doesn't get taken down. It's a three-point (win) and we have a serious chance at heavyweight of getting a pin and winning the dual."
Chanute got three points for that win, making it 39-31, which clinched the dual as even a pin at heavyweight for the Tigers could not have passed Chanute in the team total.
"That was a big win for Kevin," Albright said. "Kevin's been doing really well lately. Fort Scott's 189 pounder battled. I think Kevin, eventually, his weight kind of wore on him a little bit.
"We were hoping that Kevin would come out and get a big win, but even if he didn't, we still had Chris (Gericke) and we felt pretty comfortable."
With the dual decided, Fort Scott forfeited the heavyweight match, giving Chanute its final six points.
Brown also used some tactical weight-bumping in the opening bout with Columbus. Tanner McNutt was entered at 103 pounds and received a forfeit win as Columbus didn't have anyone at that weight.
Tweedy was pinned by Nick Thomas at 112 and Sharp was pinned by Kyle Burton at 119.
Durossette received a forfeit at 125 but Columbus' Jake Zahm was unopposed at 130. That saw the Titans in front, 18-12 after five weights.
Culbertson pinned Tadd Lucian in three minutes flat at 135, tying the dual. Then, in another feature about, Columbus' C.J. Napier took a 3-1 win over Kramer at 140 to give the Titans three team points.
"It was a good match between C.J. and Cody," Brown noted. "Obviously, a takedown makes a difference in that one. You gotta win on your feet."
Pruitt stuck Andrew Ballantyne in just 10 seconds at 145, putting Fort Scott on a roll. The Tigers won their next five match after that, four by pin.
Renfro took a 7-0 decision over Dustin McReynolds at 152. Cox pinned Kevin Wilson in 30 seconds at 160.
"Blake Cox has to fill in tonight with Blake Nelson home sick," Brown noted. "Cox comes away with two pins. It's unfortunate we don't have a spot for him in the varsity lineup because he's a varsity wrestler at a lot of other schools."
Hall pinned Nathan Morris in 48 seconds at 171 and Gettler took care of Ethan King in 2:33 at 189.
Grant finished the win streak with a pin over David Lloyd at 215 that took 50 seconds. In the final match of that dual, Columbus' Cody Moore pinned Caleb Smith.
"We had to move people around against Columbus and I thought it was going to be pretty close," Brown said. "There's not many years in my run that you can go out and have a Fort Scott team steamroll a Columbus team. It doesn't happen very often. This one here, we had the bullets and they didn't. Their good kids are very good."
The middle bout between Chanute and Columbus wasn't ever really in doubt. The Blue Comets built a 27-6 lead after the first seven matches, gave up a forfeit at 145 and then won the next five, four of which were by pin.
The Titans, going though an unusually tough season, fell to 2-3 in the SEK and 2-8 overall. They have a make-up league triangular at Columbus with Pittsburg and Independence on Saturday.
The piece of the title was the first for the Tigers in a dual schedule as the league determined its champion in 1974 with a tournament held just before regionals. It's just the second in school history.
"We're disappointed tonight, right now," Brown said. "Tomorrow, it'll kind of set in that they are an SEK co-champion. It's less than outright but, yet, it's the first time in 30 years that it's even been like that. They need to smile, grin big and take pride in the fact that did something that others haven't."
Chanute is at least a co-champ for the eighth time. They also tied for the SEK title in 1994 and won it outright in 1971, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998 and 2001.
This was also the second league championship for Labette County, which was also champ in 1977.
Columbus had won the last five championships.
NOTES -- Chanute hosted a reunion for members of past Blue Comet wrestling teams as the school is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the start of its wrestling program.
"It was a great night," Albright said. "We got to honor the 40 years of Chanute wrestling. I'm originally from Fort Scott and so I've always had tons of respect for Chanute, so it was an honor to get to salute coach Woods and the guys who got all this started."...