The Fort Osage wrestling team knocked on the door of finishing in the top four and getting a team trophy at the Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships in February.
The Indians finished sixth with 91, just 14 points behind Columbia Hickman for fourth place. This winter, they return a solid core of wrestlers after being one of the top teams in Class 5 last season.
Fort Osage graduated Rylan Mansfield and Gavin Gallman, who were both state qualifiers, but returned four of the six wrestlers who competed at state.
The Indians appear they could be a team that could compete for a state plaque in the 2024-25 season and they showed why in Saturday’s Grain Valley Invitational at Grain Valley High School.
The Indians finished in first place at the tournament with 159 points and had five wrestlers win their respective brackets. Grain Valley took fifth with 112.5 points, Blue Springs South was fifth with 83.5 points and Van Horn was 10th with 26 points.
Grain Valley Invite Tournament Team Champions! @FortOWrestling @Dudley3385 @FortOsageSchool pic.twitter.com/SZA2hYxI78
— Jarrod Steffens (@jasteffens) December 7, 2024
Defending state champion Kaison Schreier (120), a junior, is bumping up two weight classes from 106, and it appeared the jump to a new weight class had any effect on him. He dominated his bracket on Saturday, getting tech falls in all of his matches, including a 21-6 tech fall over Lee’s Summit West’s Kallen Koelzer in the championship match as he cruised to a first-place finish.
“My training partners have always been pretty big, so it was easy to adjust to a higher weight class,” Schreier said. “I liked how I got to my shots and how I worked top and bottom.”
Senior Colby Gray (150) is another key piece returning for Fort Osage. He was a state runner-up in his weight class last year picked up from where he left off last season.
