The St. Michael-Albertville Knight wrestling team lived up to its “number one” state ranking as they captured the annual Minnesota Christmas Tourney in Rochester Friday and Saturday, Dec. 17 and 18.
In the history of the Minnesota Christmas Tourney, the past 20 seasons, this was the third time that the Knights have won the team title. The other two times were 2005 and 2012. Hastings won the title in 2006 and Apple Valley has won the team title in the other 16 of the past 20 seasons.
The Knights totaled 224 points ahead of runner-up Apple Valley-203 points, in the individual format, 32-team tournament. The tourney annually attracts the top teams from Minnesota (class A, AA, and AAA), and teams from Wisconsin, and North Dakota, making it, in many ways, tougher than the State Tourney. Teams rounding out the “top 10” included: third place Kasson-Mantorvill-157 points, followed by Anoka-152.5, Kaukauna (WI)-124, Prior Lake-116.5, (tie) Simley-113 and Farmington-113, Scott West-110, and Willmar-107.
STMA crowned three individual champions including senior Mitch McKee (138 pounds), who had 3 pins and 5 wins enroute to his title. He defeated Alex Lloyd of Shakopee in an exciting 7-6 victory for McKee, in the finals. Junior Jake Allar had 4 pins leading up to his finals match where he defeated Kenny O”Neill of Prior Lake by a score of 7-2 in the 152 pound finals match. Senior Lucas Jeske had 2 pins in his 5 wins that led to his individual title at 182 pounds where he defeated Brandon Moen (Owatonna) by a score of 7-2.
The three individual champs are the most-ever by an STMA team at the Chiristmas Tourney.
Patrick McKee was the lone Knights’ runnerup as he lost in the finals to Mound-Westonka’s Aaron Cashman by a score of 5-4. McKee had 3 pins for the Knights in the tourney. The Knights had two 4th place finishers in Evan Ronsen (195) and Evan Foster (285), each gaining 2 pins for the team. Zach Nygaard (113) had 3 pins in placing 5th, Donnie Leuer (160) placed 6th with a pair of pins, while Max Jensen placed 8th at 220 pounds winning 3 matches, in the process. All 14 Knight wrestlers contributed points to the winning point total as non-placers, and included: Wyatt Bice (145) with 2 wins and 1 pin, Garrett Ailts (170) with 2 wins and 1 pin, Zac Schoen (120) with 2 wins, and Zach Dehmer (126) and Cody Schoen (132) each with 1 pin for the Knights.
Coach Dan Lefebvre was happy with the team victory and commented, “Winning was fun, but it’s just part of the journey, part of we want to do, to progress and get better as the year goes on. Our kids really went after pins, we had a tourney total of 25 pins, because they knew it would help us win the team title. You get 2 team points for every pin in an individual tourney. In the Christmas Tourney, we see many of the best wrestlers in the state. In our next two tourneys, The Clash and the Cheesehead, we’ll see some of the best teams and individuals in the nation.”
Next action for the wrestlers will be “The Clash”, a 32-team dual meet tournament in Rochester Friday and Saturday, Jan. 1 and 2. The Knights will wrestle three dual meets on Friday and three more duals on Saturday. Seedings and pairings and first-day times have yet to be determined, but will appear in the next edition of the Crow River News.
In other action Saturday, Dec. 18, the STMA JV team competed in the 16-team Anoka JV Christmas Dual Meet Tourney. The Knights defeated Forest Lake, then Apple Valley, then Cambridge-Isanti to gain the finals, where they were defeated by Albert Lea in the championship dual. Brandon Psyk, Nolan Schmitz, and Jake Ross, were each undefeated in 4 matches, for the team.