By Michael Smith Before the third- and fifth-place match started at the Class 4 Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships, Liberty already had the state championship wrapped up. Going into that round the Blue Jays were already 100-plus points ahead of second-place Christian Brothers College, which made it mathematically impossible for anyone to catch them. […]
By Michael Smith INDEPENDENCE — Whitfield has been the gold standard of excellence when it comes to high school wrestling in Missouri in recent years The Warriors had won four consecutive Class 1 state championships coming into the 2020-21 season and won nine since 2008. However, this season they were bumped up to Class 3, […]
By Michael Smith Pleasant Hill head coach Jeff Wyatt made a checklist with his team and the most important item on it was winning a Class 2 state title. After Thursday’s Class 2 Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships, the Roosters can check off the last item on their list. The Roosters finished with 137 […]
By Michael Smith Independence, MO — On the Twitter page for the Mid-Buchanan wrestling team most tweets are followed with the hashtag #outworkem. That is a motto that head coach Daniel Kountz’s Dragons have followed throughout the 2020-21 campaign. At Wednesday’s Class 1 Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships, Mid-Buchanan outworked 54 other teams to […]
By Michael Smith Not everything went the way Lebanon head girls wrestling coach Matt Neely wanted, but the ultimate goal was achieved at the Missouri High School State Girls Wrestling Championships. His Yellowjackets had six of their eight competitors earn state medals and no one won an individual state title. However, they won their second […]
By Michael Smith Grain Valley’s Sevreign Aumua was surprised when she saw Ali Howk put on a pair of wrestling shoes at a wrestling practice at Blue Springs High School a few years ago. “I remember seeing her when my little brother was practicing at Blue Springs,” Aumua said of Howk. “When she came in, […]
By Michael Smith Whether they wrestled together or in different years there, have been quite a few dominant siblings in Missouri high school wrestling history. Whether it’s Zach and Mac Bailey of Oak Park, Nick and Tony Purler of Wentzville or Cameron and Colin Valdiviez of Rockhurst, just to name a few, there have been […]
By Michael Smith Liberty had thirteen competitors in the Class 4 Sectional 4 Tournament Saturday at Staley High School, and they pulled off what would be an improbable feat for most teams. But it’s not improbable for the Blue Jays. They qualified all 13 of their wrestlers for the Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships, […]
18 min read By Michael Smith If you ask any coach in the Kansas City area what the most difficult sectional tournament in Missouri is, most of them will say Class 4 Sectional 4. Not only does the tournament have the No. 1 ranked team in the state in Liberty, there are other strong programs that […]
18 min read By Michael Smith Mid-Buchanan did something that no other team in the Class 1 Sectional 4 Tournament accomplished at districts. The Dragons, ranked No. 1 as a team according to the MissouriWrestling.com poll, qualified a wrestler in every weight class for sectional and look like the clear favorite to send the most […]