Eagles at Neligh and Nebraska Duals

(December 14, 2007) The O’Neill Eagle wrestling team started their 2007-2008 wrestling campaign with a series of 11 duals.  The first two came at the end of November against the state ranked Neligh Warriors and Madison Dragons.  The Eagles dropped both duals.  This clearly wasn’t the start we were looking for.  We had some opportunities to come out of both duals on top.  We just couldn’t seem to capitalize on the mistakes of our opponents.  In some of the matches in which our guys were a little over matched we talked a lot about keeping the score close and avoiding pins to keep out of the bonus points situation in the team scoring.  By and large we were able to do those things for 2 and a half periods.  We just seemed to have a tendency that night to let things slip away late in matches. 

This past weekend the varsity participated in the Nebraska Dual Championships a two day dual tournament in Columbus Nebraska. This is a new event on our schedule that we were really looking forward to.  Our team wrestled 9 duals in those two days.  So many matches in such a short period of time is a great way to build stamina and mental toughness of a team.  It also provides a great opportunity as coaches to see the tendencies of our wrestlers.  We can then take that knowledge and work in our practice room on correcting some of our bad habits as well as applaud some of the things we do well.   Some notable performances included Shane Coles 8-1 record.  Shane was a dominant wrestler throughout the tournament.  He lost his last match of the tournament in overtime and this was the only blemish on his record.  Unfortunately this cost him the opportunity to be on the all-dual team.  This was clearly a disappointment but he will use this experience to make him a better wrestler, I’m confident of that.  Aaron Chohon finished the tournament with a 6-3 record.  He had a real pivotal match in our matchup with Gothenburg that allowed us to win the dual.  Aaron was behind late in the match 14-2 and was able to turn his opponent to his back and record a pin.  This outcome was a direct result of the relentless style Aaron wrestled this weekend.  When you are constantly pressing your opponent you can force mistakes and take advantage of them.  Cody Gartner finished the tournament with a record of 9-0 and was named to the all tournament team.  In those 9 wins Cody was able to pin all of his opponents in the first period.  This is truly an amazing statistic. Easton Ertz wrestled well at 171 in the last match of the tournament Easton had a chance to knock off the #1 rated wrestler in Class A from Millard South.  He carried a 1 point lead into the closing seconds of the match and gave up a late takedown for the loss.  Easton finished the tournament with a 6-3 record.  Terry Laursen had a tough road throughout the tournament.  Over the course of two days Terry wrestled 4 returning state medalists and 2 other state qualifiers.  Of the nine matches Terry wrestled, 6 of his opponents were ranked in the top 6 in there respect class; two of these five are currently the number 1 rated wrestlers in Class A and Class B.  Terry dropped heartbreaking one-point decisions to both of these opponents.   He was able to defeat a returning state placer from David City in triple overtime as well as a state rated wrestler from High Plains.  He finished the tournament with a 5-4 record.  Jeff Babl was asked to wrestle up a weight class or two this past weekend as he competed in the 215 lbs.  Jeff exceeded our expectations finishing with a 5-4 record.  Jeff was disappointed with his final record.  Two of his losses were in matches that he was leading and late in the match was turned for the pin.  I looked at it a couple of ways.  You want your guys to be able to build on leads late in matches and not put themselves in positions to let their opponents climb back in and take the lead.  On the other hand in Jeff’s case he was giving up sometimes close to 30 lbs of weight to his opponents and to come out and shoot takedowns when you are giving up that much weight to build a lead early is something he should take a great deal of pride in.   This is putting into action the aggressive style we talk a lot about in practice and I applaude him for that.  The Eagles will be in action next on Saturday December 15th at the Valentine Invitational.

For team scores and individual match scores and statistics check out the results page and stats page

Eagles at West Holt Invitational

(January 15, 2008) The O’Neill wrestling team participated in the West Holt Invitational this past weekend. The Eagles finished 6th in a very tough field of teams.  Plainview finished as tournament champions with Burwell/Sargent finishing 2nd.  O’Neill was led by first place finishes from Shane Cole at 112 and Terry Laursen at 189.  Others medalling for the the Eagles were Robert Peter 2nd, Easton Ertz 3rd, while Will McCabe and Cody Gartner each placed 4th.  Shane Cole wrestled an outstanding tournament finishing the day relatively untested.  Terry Laursen was given a third seed in the tournament but wrestled his way to the top of the medal stand.  Robert Peter wrestled well in the early rounds to get into the finals but was defeated by a very good wrestler from Plainview in the finals.  Easton Ertz met up in the semifinals with a very good rated wrestler from Creighton.  The match was tied up in the second period and looked to go the distance.  Easton however made one major mistake and was taken to his back for a pin.  I know he was very disappointed but he will have another opportunity to face this opponent next week in our dual with Creighton.  Will McCabe was again injected into a pretty deep heavyweight field.  Will is an athletic wrestler that is really working hard to figure out to wrestle in this weight class.  I have know doubt he will have even more success as his number of matches increase.  Cody Gartner may have been better off missing the bus the morning of the tournament.  The stage was set for Cody to meet up in the finals with an undefeated 2 time state champion from Howells.  The wrestlers name was Bryan Majestrik.  This however did not come to pass.  In Cody’s first match a very scary situation arose as Cody attempted a  takedown.  During the maneuver Cody’s opponent came down very hard on his head and shoulders.  In this situation it is important for the offensive wrestler to return his opponent safely to the mat and in the eyes of the official this didn’t occur.  Cody was disqualified from the match when his opponent could not go on.  We were all relieved to find out Cody’s opponent was OK but did not compete the rest of the day.  I also believe it is important to note that there sure didn’t seem to be any intent on Cody’s part to do any harm it was just a very unfortunate outcome to the physical style he wrestles.  Now relegated to the consolation side of the bracket the best Cody could hope for was a third place finish.  The bad luck continued as he a suffered an injury in his next match.  Cody wrestled on and defeated his next opponent, but as we evaluated the injury before the consolation finals we decided it best to injury default the final match, thus the 4th place finish. 

This was a very good tournament for our kids, it seemed that all of our wrestlers JV and varsity faced the kind of competition they need to get better.  I think for many of our wrestlers:  Nathan Wabs, Ethan Schneider, Tony Hipke, Easton Ertz, Jeff Babl, I could go on and on; realized some of their potential this weekend.  What is even more important for them to understand is that this potential is only going to be realized through hard work in the practice room. 

The Eagles will be in action Thursday night in a dual with Pierce starting at 6:30 and then on the road again to Aurora for a dual tournament Saturday starting at 9:30 am.