Death, taxes and the Liberty boys wrestling team winning another tournament.
That’s exactly what happened when the Blue Jays hosted the 22nd annual George Hoover Invitational last Saturday.
Liberty dominated its tournament as it won 11 out of the 14 weight divisions and ran away with first place with a whopping 317.5 points. Bashehor-Linwood (192 points) and Shawnee Mission Northwest (160.5) out of Kansas finished second and third, respectively.
No. 1-ranked and senior wrestlers Peyton Westpfahl (190) and Devon Harrison (132) had no issues winning their respective brackets. Westpfahl maybe had the most impressive wins of the tournament as he got pins in lightning quick fashion – pinning Lincoln College Prep’s Timothy Hurse in 12 seconds and winning by fall in an extremely impressive 6 seconds in the semifinals vs. Liberty North’s Drake Warner.
He capped his day off with a 17-2 win by tech fall over Northwest’s Luke Gregory to easily take first.
“You dump them straight on to their back, I guess,” Westpfahl said when asked how he pinned Warner in 6 seconds. “That was a pretty fast pin, so I am assuming (that it’s a school record).”
Harrison was named The Outstanding Wrestler of the Tournament as he, like Westpfahl, steamrolled his competition. He pinned his first four opponents in less than a minute before he took a 19-3 tech fall win over Bashehor-Linwood sophomore Cael Puderbaugh in the title bout.
“I think I wrestled well,” said Harrison, who recently committed to North Dakota State University. “I got to my shots and my ties.”
Senior Trenton BIndel (285), like Harrison and Westpfahl, is a contender for an individual state championship. He ended the tournament with an exclamation point when he pinned two-time Adidas national champion Steven Brown in 4:24 in the championship match. He earned wins by fall in all three of his matches.
“I was working on some stuff that I do every day in practice,” said Bindel, who is ranked No. 3. “Me and my younger brother wrestle all the time. I got a lot of my points of scrambles and you need to do that against guys who are shifty and can move fast.”
Junior Cade Dunn (126) and sophomore Roman Stewart (144) should also be in the mix for a state championship. Dunn, who is ranked No. 2 in his weight class, made it to the championship match after three pins and one triumph by tech fall. He then proceeded to win 12-1 over Basehor-Linwood’s Jet Millson in the finals.
“I wrestled decent, but still have stuff to work on,” Dunn said. “I need to get to my shots a little bit more and not leave might right hand up.”
Stewart, also ranked No. 2, pinned his way to the finals before earning a 19-2 tech fall win against Basehor-Linwood’s Brody Ballard.
“I wrestled pretty good,” Stewart said. “I still have stuff to work on. I was trying to open up today and get to my shots, which was all right.”
Among other Blue Jays to earn a spot on the top podium were freshman Rowdy Angst (106), who coasted to a 15-0 tech fall win over Basehor-Linwood freshman Grant Taylor in the championship match; Sophomore Gavin Shelton (113), who edged Basehor-Linwood junior Eric Vielhauer 4-1in the finals; Freshman Ross Davis, who grinded his way to an 8-4 win over Basehor-Linwood sophomore AJ Ward; Senior Kody Bui (150) beat his own teammate, Levi Schrader 15-0 in the title bout; Freshman Dominic Stinson (157), who took an 11-3 decision against Northwest’s Cole Johnson; and sophomore Masen Bindel (215) got two penalty points to edge North Kansas City’s Kobe Rhymes, 2-1.
