By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Ozark, MO — The Ozark/Nixa rivalry heated up once again in Ozark on Thursday night. This time, it was the grapplers taking center stage, with the Tigers out-wrestling the Eagles, 50-27. Any time the two Christian County schools meet, it always draws a big crowd and tonight was no different, as it was Senior Night in Ozark.
Ozark jumped out to a quick 29-0 lead as they got three pins, a major win, and a forfeit out of the first five matches. It wasn’t until Nixa’s Kolyn Eli (138) outscored Cooper St. John, 3-2, that the Eagles won their first match of the night. Nixa won the next two matches by pin fall and closed the point gap, 29-15.
Ozark senior Nicky Gladkov got the Tigers back on the winning track when he pinned his opponent at the 2:41 mark. Gladkov, who comes with his own cheering section, gave them plenty to cheer about.
“It was a lot of fun tonight,” said Gladkov. “I had a lot of friends and family that came out to support me. I came out and tried to have fun, thankful for another match that I get to wrestle for my team. I had fun with it, like I love to do. Beating Nixa, our rival team, on Senior Night, just makes it more fun. It builds up the crowd and gets us going.”
Ozark coach Tod Sundlie was happy to see Gladkov’s momentum-changing match.
“We started off well, but then Nixa bounced back in the middle with some good wins,” said Sundlie. “Nicky brought that energy that he always does and we rolled a little bit from there.”
Ozark senior Tyson Albright continued Ozark’s winning ways in the 170 weight class.
“It was a lot of fun, we had a good turnout,” said Albright. “I’m grateful for a lot of people that came out and supported Ozark wrestling and Nixa wrestling, it’s good for the community for us to have a good rivalry. I came out in the first period pretty confident; it felt good for the team, getting the six points. I think we really needed that.”
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Nixa had dug a big hole that they just couldn’t get out of, something they’ve been doing all year.
“Where we’ve been successful is that we’ve been able to limit the amount of points we give up going into around 138 and tonight we were not able to do that,” said Nixa coach Doug Martin. “We gave up 29 points in the first five matches. That was just too big of a hole for us to come out of. Our middle weights, I thought they wrestled well, and our big guys did ok. We have a few kids that were sick and were asked to go out there. It’s Ozark so you’ve really got to try to put your best foot forward, go out and wrestle.”
With confidence on his side, Ozark senior Jace Gorn (285) had the last match of the night. Having already clinched the team victory, Gorn was looking for a pin.
“I felt pretty confident going out with the weight difference,” said Gorn. “I took him down pretty early and just rode him on top until the end. I did my thing. It’s fantastic to beat Nixa, they are our rival team. Along with beating them at football, this is just icing on the cake. I want to win state and further my athletic abilities. That’s what I really like about wrestling.”
Even with the lopsided score, the rivalry remained intense. In the end, sportsmanship and camaraderie was shown by both sides.
“I thought we were excited, obviously, it’s Ozark-Nixa and a lot to get excited about,” said Sundlie. “It was senior night, so much going on, I was hoping we could maintain the focus and I thought we did. Our lower weight wrestlers did really well. Nixa has some talent down there, as well. We know Nixa’s team is well coached and it’s always going to be tough. We have districts in a few weeks and we won’t be ready but we are trying to peak at the right time. We feel good where we are but want to be a different team a week from now. We want to be a different team two weeks from now. We’ve still got work to do.”
NIXA 27 OZARK 50
106–Clayton Moisen (Ozark) over Deagan Fugitt (Nixa) (Fall 0:47)
113–Jake Nickols (Ozark) over Brayden Middleton (Nixa) (Fall 3:31)
120–Wyatt Snyder (Ozark) over Dylan Carter (Nixa) (Fall 1:28)
126–Elijah Maskrod (Ozark) over Ethan Shepherd (Nixa) (TF 17-2 6:00)
132–Riley Sundlie (Ozark) over Unknown (For.)
138–Kolyn Eli (Nixa) over Cooper St. John (Ozark) (Dec 3-2)
145–Chandler McAtee (Nixa) over Kael Conway (Ozark) (Fall 5:39)
152–Charles Hawkins (Nixa) over Thomas Rushing (Ozark) (Fall 3:06)
160–Nick Gladkov (Ozark) over Trevor Rock (Nixa) (Fall 2:41)
170–Tyson Albright (Ozark) over Austin Davis (Nixa) (Fall 2:31)
182–Ryan Taylor (Ozark) over Marek Davis (Nixa) (Dec 9-5)
195–Donovan Benetti (Nixa) over Joe Satterly (Ozark) (Fall 0:33)
220–Oswaldo Garcia (Nixa) over Hunter Tennison (Ozark) (Fall 5:06)
285- Jace Gorn (Ozark) over Ryan Davis (Nixa) (Fall 2:45)
