By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Republic Tigers hosted the Neosho Wildcats and the Camdenton Lakers in a wrestling triangular on Tuesday night. The Class 3 Wildcats, led by a strong senior class, dominated the triangular.
Neosho coach Jeremy Phillips has his team geared up and looking to win their sixth straight State title.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Phillips. “I believe there is a training triangle we’ve got to work on. The technical side, obviously clean some things up. We’ve got to work on our conditioning, I don’t feel like our conditioning is where it needs to be. The mental side is the other part and that affects the confidence and it also affects your mental toughness and the way you train for your conditioning and technique, so it all goes together. There’s no secrets to success; we’ve got to be willing to work, we’ve got to be persistent with our efforts, and the shortcomings that we have, even within wins, we’ve got to learn that. If something doesn’t work, how do we fix it? Putting the time in, putting the effort in, is the key.”
One of the key wrestlers leading Neosho to their two victories was senior Joey Williams. Williams, a third place finisher at state last year, is looking to move to the top of the podium this year.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE TRIANGULAR
“In order to keep improving, I push myself every day, put in my time and work out hard,” said Williams. “My goal at the end of the year is to be a state champion. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and me putting in extra time, staying after practice, drilling, and pushing myself in practice. I just go out there and wrestle my match, it doesn’t matter who I’m wrestling. I’m just going to go out there, wrestle, and do what I do.”
Lakers coach Grant Leighty was pleased with his team’s efforts and improvements, but is still looking to reduce mistakes.
“I’m real proud of the boys and the effort they gave,” said Leighty. “We faced two tough teams and the kids gave everything they had. Unfortunately, we are still making small mistakes that we’ve been making all year. This time of year we’ve got to stop doing that, we’ve got to be moving forward and not making those same mistakes. We’re going to go back in the practice room and work on those things, see if we can get a little bit better. We head to Branson this weekend, we see some more good competition there. Those are the matches that we are going to have to win if we want to get ourselves to state and make some noise. I was very proud of our kids’ effort tonight, I thought they wrestled hard.”
Republic coach Jerry Morton was proud of the way his young Tigers competed.
“Neosho, they are defending state champs so you always know they are going to come in and be a tough team,” said Morton. “I thought we wrestled pretty well against them. We had a lot of close matches, and we had a couple matches that if a few things would have went a little bit differently we could have had a chance. That’s what happens. We have quite a few young wrestlers that haven’t wrestled before so we are kind of in that process of rebuilding a little bit. Against Camdenton, we had some guys step up. We had a little short team meeting after the Neosho dual and discussed our mentality, how we wanted to go out and wrestle Camdenton. We were a lot more aggressive going forward. Our Heavyweight (Darren Aldrich) had a big win, and that kind of sealed the victory for us. Then again, it was a team effort. It took the matches before that to make sure that our heavyweight could be in that opportunity. We will be ready for district in three weeks—we don’t have a choice.”
Results:
Team Score: Republic 31-Camdenton 30
106 Grant Garrett (Camdenton) over Zoe Bowman (Republic) (Fall 1:00)
113 Jacob Fuglsang (Camdenton) over Reese Lawler (Republic) (Fall 1:56)
120 Colton Libby (Camdenton) over Brandon Cron (Republic) (Fall 0:33)
126 Michael Taylor (Republic) over Wyatt Stamper (Camdenton) (Fall 1:23)
132 Jonathan O`Connell (Republic) over Ryan Rothove (Camdenton) (MD 10-0)
138 Gabe Blain (Camdenton) over Isaiah Madson (Republic) (Fall 0:40)
145 Winton Neal (Camdenton) over Riley Woodring (Republic) (Dec 7-1)
152 Ethan Harris (Camdenton) over Reece Sobelewski (Republic) (Dec 7-0)
160 Trevor Tippie (Republic) vs. Jesus Ramirez (Camdenton)
170 Seth Wild (Republic) over Bryce Leuenberger (Camdenton) (Fall 3:37)
182 John Hickman (Republic) vs. Unknown
195 Tyler Dawson (Republic) over Reese Esqueda (Camdenton) (Fall 2:28)
220 Austin Moody (Republic) over William Fisher (Camdenton) (Fall 4:17)
285 Darren Aldrich (Republic) over Marcus Stephens (Camdenton) (Dec 5-4)
Team Score: Republic 21- Neosho 52
106 Landon Kivett (Neosho) over Zoe Bowman (Republic) (Fall 1:37)
113 Cayden Auch (Neosho) over Reese Lawler (Republic) (MD 13-0)
120 Brady Franklin (Neosho) over Brandon Cron (Republic) (Fall 1:58)
126 Michael Taylor (Republic) over Noah Reiboldt (Neosho) (Fall 4:41)
132 Trenton Young (Neosho) over Jonathan O`Connell (Republic) (Dec 4-2)
138 Isaiah Madson (Republic) over Unknown (For.)
145 Jeremiah Larson (Neosho) over Riley Woodring (Republic) (Fall 3:17)
152 Alec Rothman (Neosho) over Reece Sobelewski (Republic) (Dec 14-9)
160 Seth Wild (Republic) over Jacob Fry (Neosho) (Fall 0:54)
170 Drayke Perry (Neosho) over Unknown (For.)
182 Joey Williams (Neosho) over John Hickman (Republic) (Fall 0:27)
195 Tyler Dawson (Republic) over Caleb Elliot (Neosho) (Dec 4-0)
220 Zane Persinger (Neosho) over Austin Moody (Republic) (Fall 1:54)
285 Adrian Hitchcock (Neosho) over Darren Aldrich (Republic) (Fall 1:43)
Team Score: Neosho 50, Camdenton 22
106 Cayden Auch (Neosho) over Grant Garrett (MDec 11-3)
113 Jacob Fuglsang (Camdenton) over Landon Kivett (Fall 1:40)
120 Brady Franklin (Neosho) over Colton Libby (Dec 8-6)
126 Wyatt Stamper (Camdenton) over Noah Reiboldt (MDec 12-4)
132 Trenton Young (Neosho) over Ryan Tothove (Fall 2:35)
138 Gabe Blaine (Camdenton) over unknown (For)
145 Jeremiah Larson (Neosho) over Winton Neal (Dec 7-3)
152 Alec Rothman (Neosho) over Ethan Harris (MDec 14-5)
160 Jesus Ramirez (Camdenton) over Jacob Fry (Fall 0:43)
170 Drayke Perry (Neosho) over Brice Leuenberger (Fall 1:12)
182 Joey Williams (Neosho) over unknown (For)
195 Caleb Elliot (Neosho) over Reese Esqueda (Fall 1:40)
220 Zane Persinger (Neosho) over William Fisher (Fall 0:52)
285 Adrian Hitchcock (Neosho) over Marcus Stephens (Fall 1:02)
