Michael Smith
With big events like the Southern Plains Tournament and Fargo Nationals coming up during the summer, wrestlers from elementary to high-school aged competitors had a chance to get some work in.
Some wrestlers from the Kansas City area from both the Kansas and Missouri side competed in GroWrestling.com’s Black and Blue Tournament Saturday at Olathe West High School, just three weeks before the Southern Plains Tournament begins in the first week of June.
There were five divisions in the event – two kids divisions, a high school girls division, a cadet boys division and a junior boys division.
MissouriWrestling.com broke down the top finisher from the state in each weight class for the high school weight classes below:
High School Girls
95.5-106.9 pounds: Blue Springs South’s Killian Evans didn’t have much trouble make it through her bracket as a winner, as she went 3-0 with two pins and a tech fall to earn first place.
“It was a really good day to be honest,” Evans said. “At the beginning of the day, I was good on my feet and I just eased into it.”
108.6-110.6: North Kansas City’s Elena Moore just needed to win two matches to win her bracket. She got a pin and a 10-0 tech fall victory to claim her spot atop the weight class.
112.9-113.9: Savannah’s Jade Brundige said there is one aspect of her wrestling she needs to improve before she competes in the bigger tournaments during the summer. But she still showed she has enough skill to dominate any bracket. The Missouri state champion earned tech falls in all three of her matches to take first.
“I feel like I could have wrestled a little better, with my rolls and stuff” Brundige said. “But overall, my technique worked for me.”
122-124.6: From what she said after her last match, Odessa’s Addison Eddleman may not have wrestled her best, according to her. But she still had two pins by tech fall and one by pin to capture first place.
“I think I took a couple of good shots,” Eddleman said. “I had a couple of mess ups but I won and that’s what matters.”
124.9-127.5: Washington’s Ava Griffey went 3-1 in her bracket to take second place. Olathe’s Nicole Redmond took first and pinned Griffey in their match. Griffey had a pin and two wins by decision.
128.6-133.5: Park Hill’s Rylin Beatty has been on a roll in freestyle competition lately and that continued Saturday as she went 4-0, with three wins by fall and one by tech fall to take first.
“I feel like I did pretty good,” Beatty said. “I hit my first five-point throw. It was the second to last match. I went for a double and ended up getting a throw out of that.”
135.2-137.8: Columbia Rock Bridge’s Socorro Rodriguez had a tight contest in her first match, getting a 13-8 decision over Savanna Franklin. From there, she dominated the rest of the bracket, winning two matches by pin and one by tech fall to take her bracket.
139-145: Jefferson City’s Jacinda Espinosa had one win by fall, one by tech fall and she got a 11-2 decision against Olathe’s Audrey Lennard as she was triumphant in her bracket.
145-147.5: Warrensburg’s Gigi Jones took second place after going 2-1 in her bracket. Her lone loss came by fall against Nicole Taylor of Paola, Kansas.
149.5-150.3: Grain Valley’s Camary Schamlzbach went 1-1 in her bracket to finish in a three-way tie record wise but ended up earning the tiebreaker to get first place.
160.8-169.7: Pleasant Hill’s Alana Thelin said that she had not wrestled her best coming into Saturday’s tournament, but she appeared to bounce back as she got three wins by tech fall and one by pin to take first place.
“I felt like I did pretty good today,” Thelin said. “I have been in a slump recently so it felt good to get back on track. I accomplished what I wanted to today.”
High School Cadet Division
103.9-112.5: Parkville’s Dylan Hall took third in his weight class 2-2 in his bracket.
114-120.5: Kansas City’s Magnus Hoenshell went 4-0, getting three wins by tech fall and one by pin to take first place.
121.1-124.3: Warrenburg’s Jet Brown only gave up one point in three matches and won all of those by tech fall to take first place.
124.8-127.8: Odessa’s Blaine Wallace didn’t give up a single point in any of his three matches and won them all by tech fall to capture his weight division.
129.3-136.1: Odessa’s Kamden Hooper finished 4-0 and won three matches by tech fall and got one victory by a 11-7 decision against Lawrence’s Aiden Stuart.
136.3-139.4: Kearney’s Kale Davis is an eighth grader who was competing against high school aged wrestlers Saturday and he proved he could hang with them. He had two wins by tech fall, one by pin and a 10-5 decision as he won his bracket.
“It will definitely make me better,” Davis said. “I just need to work on my feet and keep circling and I have to work my angles more.”
141.7-148.1: Blue Springs Dominic Payne took second place after finishing 3-1. His lone loss was by a 10-0 tech fall to Lawrence’s Grayson Hagen.
148.7-153.5: Park Hill’s Noah Johnson found different ways to win. He got one win by fall, one by tech fall, one by forfeit and had a 23-19 decision in a high-scoring match Knob Noster’s Eliah Avery as he finished in first.
157-161.3: Kade Tholen, who will attend Rockhurst next season, went 4-0 with two wins by pin and one by tech fall. One pinfall victory came after overcoming a 8-4 deficit against Overland Park’s Carter Hughes as he took first place.
“I saw an opening and took advantage of it and got the stick,” Tholen said. “The underhooks were open throughout the tournament. I just have to learn to keep my elbow up.”
161.7-168.3: Blue Springs’ Brayden Greenfield went 3-1 with three pins as he took second place after falling to first-place Tucker Hutchison of Bashor, Kansas in a 10-4 loss.
173.5-180.6: Belton’s Jameson Lyons won one match by tech fall, he edged another opponent in a 12-11 decision and earned another decision by a 10-4 score as he took his weight class.
229.3-231.8: Kyler Kuhn, who will be attending St. Pius X next season, competed in the cadet and junior divisions. In this weight class, he went 2-0 as he has a pin and tech fall to earn first place.
“Both my brackets were two-match round robins, so I wanted to get a lot of matches in,” Kuhn said when asked why he entered in the junior and cadet divisions. “I also wanted to compete at a higher level.
High School Juniors Division
116.8-120: Platte County’s Caden Hulett went 3-1 with two pins and one victory by tech fall as he took second place. He lost 12-4 to Lenexa’s Gabriel Sherrell in the fourth round.
122.2-128.6: Carl Junction’s Drake Richardson took third place in this weight division after going 1-2.
136.5-140.4: Warrensburg’s Keyen Soto pinned all four of his opponents as he rolled to a first-place finish.
141-151.8: Liberty North’s Dru Thomas pinned both of his opponents as he finished 2-0 that was good enough to take first place.
157.8-166.3: Staley’s Merrick Murray won three of his matches by tech fall and one by pin as he continued his recent success with a first-place finish.
170-177.2: Richmond’s Elijah Sanders took two matches by tech fall, one by pin and one by no contest as he took first place in his weight class.
186.7-190.2: St. Joseph Central’s Jackson Perkins won two matches by a 10-0 margin and had a 15-8 decision win over Noah Mathis to take first place.
190.4-198.4: Jefferson City’s Doug Blaha won two matches by tech fall and one by fall as he cruised to a bracket victory.
217.9-232: Platte County’s Jake Fernendez only had one other wrestler in his bracket. He won both of his matches against Elijah Mathis by a 12-1 tech fall and a 9-6 decision as he took first place.
259.5: Blue Springs South’s Callen Smithpeter went 2-0 with a pin and a 6-2 decision over Kuhn as he earned first place.
“I was getting to my control ties very well,” Smithpeter said. “I just got to finish my shots.”
