PIRATE WRESTLERS FINISH 4TH, BROWN WINS AGAIN, MEIER WINS 100TH

The Crookston Pirate Wrestling team had one champion, two runners-up, one third-place finish and four fourth-place finishes on their way to a fourth-place team finish at the 61st Annual Skip Nalan Grand Rapids Invitational Wrestling tournament.  Grand Rapids won the tournament.
Crookston had a good start to the day when they won six of their eight first-round matches and won six more matches in the second round and struggled a bit in the third round.  “The guys wrestled great,” said Pirate Coach Wes Hanson. “We got into a little bit of a funk in the middle there, whether it was some tougher competition, but I thought the guys finished strong and that was nice to see.”

Champion –
Zach Brown at 113 pounds – Zach, the second-ranked wrestler in the state at 113 pounds in Class A) received a first-round bye before winning his quarterfinal match by a Tech Falls (17-2).  He continued his domination with a 10-2 victory in the semi-finals over a kid from Hibbing.  In the championship, Zach got a takedown with 45 seconds left in the first period for a 2-0 lead.  30 seconds into the second period, Zach gave up and escape and his lead was 2-1.  About halfway through the second period, Zach had another takedown for a 4-1 lead.  He gave up an escape late in the period and took a 4-2 lead into the third period.  25 seconds into the third period, Zach had an escape for a 5-2 lead before he gave up a reversal for a 5-4 lead.  Seconds after Zach’s opponent had the reversal he countered with a reversal of his own to take a 7-4 lead and held on the rest of the way for a 7-4 victory to win the championship and improve to 31-1 on the year.  “Zach is wrestling well right now and he was able to get a nice takedown in the first period.  I am not sure what word to use is, but he is slippery, elusive and he finds a way to counter off attacks and does a great job finding a way to win,” said Coach Hanson. “It comes down to being fundamentally solid and he is wrestling well right now.”

Runners-up –
Lukas Meier at 152 pounds – Lukas, the fifth-ranked wrestler in the state at 152 pounds, breezed to the finals with a first-round bye, a pin in 34 seconds and in the semifinals he won by a pin with four seconds left in the first period for his 100th career victory to advance to the championship.   In the championship, Lukas took on a friend and old teammate, Brendin Morlan of Grand Rapids.  The championship was tied at 4-4 at the end of regulation forcing a one minute sudden victory period and Morlan got a takedown 17 seconds into the extra time and won 6-4.  “It was a good match and close the whole way and did a lot of things really well,” said Coach Hanson. “We needed to find a way to score another point late.  Wrestling is a grueling sport and to have Lukas reach the 100 win milestone is impressive and we will celebrate the accomplishment with him.”

Blake Fee at 220 pounds – There were only four wrestlers at 220 pounds so they did a round-robin format.  Fee won his first match by pin in the second period.  In his second match, he wrestled a kid from Edina that is 33-5 on the year and made it to the third period before he was pinned.  In the final match, Fee came out strong and pinned his opponent in 38 seconds and finished second place.  “Blake wrestled awesome his first-round match and had a couple nice takedowns in the first period and he wore his opponent out and wrestled a great first round match and beat a guy that was 9-4 on the year so it was a nice win,” said Coach Hanson. “He ran into a good kid from Edina for finishing with the win so it was a nice day for Blake.”

Third place –
Ethan Bollat 160 pounds – Ethan received a first-round bye before he beat a kid from Walker-Hackensack-Akeley 10-4 to advance to the semi-finals.  He lost by pin in the semi’s before he bounced back with a strong third-place match and led big before he got a pin at the 3:19 mark to finish in third place.  “Ethan got the first round win and got things going for us,” said Coach Hanson. “He got into some upper body situations and they didn’t go his way today.”

Fourth places –
Ethan Bowman at 106 pounds – Ethan had a good start to the day with a pin in the first period of his first match and he won the quarterfinal match by a pin in the second period.  In the semi-finals, he lost a hard-fought 2-0 decision before getting pinned in the third-place match.  “Ethan had a great start to the day,” said Coach Hanson. “We needed to find a way to get some points on the board in the semi’s, but overall it was a good day for Ethan.”

Braxton Volker at 126 pounds – Braxton received a first-round bye before he won his quarterfinal match by a pin in 65 seconds.  He lost a hard-fought 8-6 decision in the semi-finals and lost 13-2 in the third-place match to finish fourth.  “In the semi-final match he was wrestling a solid kid,” said Coach Hanson. “He wrestled well today and it was good to see.”

Cameron Weiland at 132 pounds – Cameron won his first match by a pin in the second period.  He lost his quarterfinal match by pin in the first period and bounced back to win his next match by a pin in 31 seconds.  In the third-place match, he lost 13-3 to finish fourth.  “He wrestled some familiar opponents today,” said Coach Hanson. “He started his third-place match with a great first period, but he came up short with a pretty good day of wrestling.”

Damian Hodgson at 182 pounds – Damian, a champion at the Skip Nalan tournament last year, received a first-round bye and won his quarterfinal match by pin in 34 seconds.  In the semi-finals, Damian lost a heartbreaking 2-1 decision.  In the third-place match, Damian lost another down to the wire match, this time by an 8-6 score to finish fourth. “He competes so hard and to lose 2-1 was tough,” said Coach Hanson. “He wrestled well and could have easily won his last two matches, but sometimes that is the way it goes.”

Crookston will host Badger-Greenbush-Middle River in a big Section 8A dual on Thursday.

TEAM SCORES –
1. GRAND RAPIDS  205.5
2. HIBBING – 167
3. DEER RIVER 147.5
4. CROOKSTON 134.5
5. NORTH BRANCH 117.5
6. VIRGINIA 109
7. EDINA 86
8. MAHNOMEN-WAUBUN 64
9. NASHWAUK-KEEWATIN/GREENWAY 58
10. WALKER-HACKENSACK-AKELEY 37
11. PROCTOR-HERMANTOWN 32.5

We are updating the results as they go.  If you are using a phone, tip the phone horizontally for the best view of the results.

[yotuwp type=”videos” id=”8hg0NWhUyOc” ]