It wasn’t the most exciting way Blue Springs Jackson Paulsen could reach the special milestone.
But hey, he will take it. No way around it, 100 wins is a huge career achievement and a lot of hard work has been put in the entire process.
Paulsen was scheduled to wrestle Kale Lepart in his team’s Suburban Gold Conference dual with Lee’s Summit North. However, North coach Mick Cronk elected to bump Lepart up from the 150-pound bout to 157, which gave Paulsen a victory by forfeit.
The win was Paulsen’s 100th of his high school career and he also saw his team earn a 43-30 victory over the Broncos at home.
“It’s awesome to get that achievement,” said, who improved to 38-1 this season. “I was hurt last year, but this was expected.
“We are turning the program around and we have more of a community around it.”
Ian Kephart (106 pounds) has been a big part of Blue Springs’ resurgence as his team’s dual record improved to 9-8 after the win. He got things started with a pin against Colton Larimer in 3:26.
“(Head coach Alan) Hull has been doing a good job getting us back in shape,” Kephart said. “We are turning this program around. We are changing how we practice. We have been focusing on recovering before our tournaments and duals.
“I got taken down twice in my match. I got fired up and came back and pinned him.”
Rylon Collier (132) added an impressive win for the Wildcats as he pinned Adam Paul with a cradle in just 25 seconds.
“I felt like I wrestled well,” Collier. “I pushed the pace in the first period. I knew it was going to be somewhat of an easy match, but we always want to prepare correctly. We like to get after some teams.”
Other Wildcats to earn victories were:
120: Timothy Ekart earned a 19-3 tech fall win over Mack Southern in 5:44.
126: Anthony Venegas won by fall in 5:26 against Cash Hammons.
165: Brock Combs was a takedown machine as he had six of them in a 24-6 tech fall victory over Tyler Wise in 5:59.
175: Kade Schmidli grinded out a 5-0 win over Chris McDonald.
285: Silas Babaloa won by forfeit.
Lee’s Summit North was able to notch a few wins, but it wasn’t enough to get a conference win over the Wildcats.
Broncos to pick up victories were:
113: Ryan Ward got an overtime takedown to defeat Becorth Moore 4-1.
138: Jack Abraham pinned Aiden Bowman in just 32 seconds.
144: Alex Wise got a takedown and four-point near fall in the first period and never looked back in a 13-1 win over Kolby Ginnings.
157: Kale Lepart won by forfeit.
190: Deandre Harrell cruised to a 19-3 tech fall win against Dodge DiGusto.
215: Barrett Lawless won by forfeit.
