Odessa JV Dual Tournament

By Michael Smith

Schools in the Missouri area are on Christmas break, which means there are some junior varsity tournaments in the Kansas City area that allow some of the younger wrestlers to get some work in.

On Thursday, Odessa High School hosted a junior varsity dual tournament which featured a round-robin style dual tournament with six teams competing.

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The event came down to a dual between Odessa and Blue Springs South for first place and the host team ended up earning the tiebreaker after a 27-27 and came away with first place after going 5-0 in the tournament.

The tiebreaker criteria was team penalties as Odessa only had six compared to 12 for the Jaguars.

The Bulldogs also defeated Lincoln College Prep 48-18, Marshall 48-24, Ruskin 54-0 and Richmond 45-12.

Odessa had six wrestlers finish the day undefeated, with four going 5-0.

One of those to win five matches included Ethan Kimmel (165 pounds). He earned pinfall victories in three of his contested bouts and had two forfeit wins. He noted there some improvements he needed to make going forward even after a successful tournament.

“I could’ve done better,” Kimmel said. “I need to get my offense going and get some shots going instead of just waiting it out and stalling.”

Like Kimmel, Carson Hager (175) had a dominant performance as he pinned both of his opponents in his contested matches and had three forfeit wins to join the 5-0 group.

“I feel like I did pretty well,” Hager said. “I just need to sharpen up some of my moves. I need to work on my escapes, shots and setups.”

Drew Jarrett (157) didn’t get five matches in but he finished 4-0 with three pins and a 5-1 victory over Richmond’s Miguel Valencia.

“I feel like I did well,” Jarrett said. “I got to my offense a lot. Double legs and slide bys (worked well for him in the tournament.”

Zeke Bergen (190) had the same results as Hager as he notched two pins and three wins by forfeit. Liam Shippy (120) also finished 5-0 for Odessa as he had four wins by pin and a forfeit victory. Wyatt Lockhart (132) managed to finish with the same record as Shippy. He had two wins by fall and three by forfeit. Landyn Chapman wrestled just two matches and went 2-0 for the Bulldogs.

Blue Springs South took second place after going 4-1 and Marshall took third after ending the day with a 3-2 record.

South had four wrestlers who had at least three matches and finished the day unbeaten. Cian Evans (126) and Caleb Hart (150) each went 5-0, Tyler Howlitt (285) was 4-0 and Gage Stuart (138) was 3-0.

For the Owls, Trevieon Carter (215), Romey Maupin (106) and Joel Chavarria (144) all went 5-0.