The Buffalo Bison took team title at the COC-Small conference tournament on Saturday. They had ten wrestlers make it to the finals with seven individual champions.
Marshfield came in second place, sending all fourteen of their wrestlers to the podium with two first-place finishers. Buffalo finished with 223 team points and Marshfield had 191.5. Rogersville came in third place with 187, followed by Bolivar with 108, Hollister and Reeds Spring with 68.5, and the host school Springfield Catholic with 16.5.
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Ethan Smith (106 pounds) and Floyd Miller (152) are two Buffalo freshman that finished first in their weight class on Saturday. Smith improved to 34-1 with a win by fall over Granite Cunningham from Bolivar. Miller remained undefeated at 35-0 as he pinned Marshfield’s Clay Wilson in the first period of the title match.
Sophomore Marcus Autrey (145), junior Blake Williamson (160), junior Austin Reid (170), sophomore Colten Kenady (195), and sophomore Shane Sisco (285) also each won individual titles for the young Buffalo team.
“I felt like they really stepped up today,” said Bison head coach Eric Nolan. “We challenged them to seize the moment and we’ve been working really hard since last year. We came up a little bit short last year getting second. That’s been kind of on our minds since then. The kids really stepped up when they needed to today… Having ten out of fourteen kids in the finals is pretty impressive to me and I’m real proud of them.”
A couple of Marshfield wrestlers had to grind past Buffalo to claim their two individual championships. Junior Patrick Wilson pinned Buffalo’s Cody Gruber in the third period of the 126-pound title bout, and sophomore Deryl Vannostrand beat Buffalo’s Doug Welden in the 182-pound title bout with a 3-2 decision.
“We medaled all fourteen of our kids, so to put fourteen on the medal stand feels awesome,” said Marshfield coach Matt Holt. “I mean, the kids, they took care of business. They did what they were supposed to do and they wrestled tough. So overall, great team effort.”
Rogersville nearly mirrored Marshfield’s results, sending all but one wrestler to the podium. The Wildcats had thirteen out of their fourteen wrestlers place in the top four, including two individual champs. Campbell Lucas (132) and Noah Gann (220) finished in first place for Rogersville.
Reeds Spring’s Briar Crain (113) and Matt Kahnert (120) each won their respective weight classes, and Chase Hampton (138) was the only champion for Bolivar. Hampton pinned his opponent just 30 seconds into the championship match.
Five of Buffalo’s seven champs are underclassmen. Coach Nolan commented on his young team.
“I think [this win] is something that we needed,” he said. “We’re a young team, only have one senior. Everybody else should be back next year, so I think it was a step that we needed to take. Some of our kids at times, I don’t want to say lacked confidence, but just need things like this to kind of get us over the hump and get us ready for some more of our goals. I told our kids that we can’t be satisfied, we have more goals to accomplish this year and that’s kind of what we’re working at right now.”
Buffalo, like most other wrestling squads, gear their season towards the district tournaments, which determine who goes to state. The Bison qualified just two wrestlers for state last year. They hope to increase that number this year.
“We have a lot of kids that have very high expectations that want to win state titles and want to be all-state and qualify for state,” Nolan said. “We constantly have to remind ourselves that we have a lot to prove. Yes, we have a lot of talent on our team and a lot of hard-working good kids, but we can’t be satisfied with how we do at conference. We have a 12-1 dual record… but that’s not all we’re shooting for. We have high aspirations for the state series.”
