After surrendering the conference team title to Lebanon in 2015, the Waynesville Tigers reclaimed their usual spot atop the OC wrestling tournament on Saturday at Parkview High School.
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Five Waynesville wrestlers earned championships on Saturday, including the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the tournament Sean Sax. The sophomore is a returning state medalist and improved his record to 39-2 on the year at 113 pounds.
“We put eight guys in the finals,” said Tigers coach Lucas Smith. “They all wrestled very very hard… Sean Sax, he’s just been dominant all year… [One loss came] to the second-ranked kid in the state by a couple points, and [one loss came] to one of the fifteenth-ranked national kids, a kid out of Nebraska. So he’s wrestling great competition and he’s stepping up when we need to.”
Sax beat Hogan Fisher from Lebanon in the 113-pound title match. Peter Lucitt (152 pounds), David Hawk (160), Todd Angel (195) and Brandon Fancher (220) each also won gold medals for the Tigers on Saturday.
“David and Brandon, my best friends, they just don’t know how to turn it off,” said Todd Angel. “They’re always going one hundred percent, they’re always ready to fight, they’re always ready to go.”
Angel, Hawk and Fancher are all seniors and were state qualifiers last season.
“Last year, getting a medal at state has really given me the confidence this year,” said Angel. “It’s been a unique year because I’ve never really had the belief in myself concerning wrestling, but now it’s completely changed my season.”
Angel, now 31-3, defeated John Henson from Lebanon by fall in the second period of the 195-pound championship bout.
“Todd Angel, dominant as always at 195, same as Brandon Fancher,” said Coach Smith. “They’re both returning state medalists, returning state qualifiers, and they’re just picking up where they left off last year. Same with David Hawk. He might not be the flashiest guy out there, but he gets it done when we need him to. Peter Lucitt moved up a weight class in the past few weeks to help fill a hole and he’s just kind of been on fire and on a roll. You can’t ever really count him out. He got taken down in the beginning of the first period but then after that he just controlled the rest of the match and made it his.”
The Lebanon Yellowjackets came in second place as a team, followed by Rolla, Joplin, Camdenton, Kickapoo, Glendale, Hillcrest and Parkview.
Lebanon’s Adrian Palmer was the team’s lone champion in the tournament. He made quick work of all of his opponents in the 182-pound weight class. He beat each of his opponents by fall in the first period on the day. He pinned Joplin’s Solomon Garcia just 35 seconds into the title bout. Palmer is now 23-5 in his senior year.
“When he’s on, he’s on,” said Lebanon coach Randy Roark. “He probably only wrestled for about a minute today. He had a good tournament. He finished as a three-time champ here and one-time runner up. He’s a four-time finalist, so he’s had a pretty good tournament here in the Ozark Conference.”
The Yellowjackets also had five silver medal winners.
Rolla sent five wrestlers to the top of the podium on Saturday. Coleman Brainard (120 pounds), Tristan Barr (126), Ryan Markovic (132), Gage Maxwell (138) and Seth Veatch (170) each won championships in their weight class. In addition, Rolla's coach Marty Hauck won the OC Coach of the Year.
Waynesville, Lebanon and Rolla commonly occupy the top three team spots in this conference wrestling tournament each year. Lebanon took the top spot last year with Waynesville coming in second, but with the title on Saturday, Waynesville has now won eight of the last ten OC championships.
And on the eve of Super Bowl 50, Cam Newton had Waynesville (and everyone else, it seems) dabbing as they left the gym.
District tournaments will take place next weekend. The real work begins this week as each team will attempt to achieve their goals of making it to the MSHSAA state wrestling tournament in Columbia.
“In the preseason, we come in the first day and we have our same goal,” Smith said, “and that’s to be one of the top teams not only in the conference and districts, but as well as state. And we keep that expectation all year long. We tell the guys, this is your expectation… we use this tournament as kind of our spring board to build our confidence, work on things that we need to work on and get ready to go for next week.”
“Everybody is 0-0 going into districts, so whoever wants it is going to wind up going to state,” said Roark.
