Behind four individual champions, the STMA Knights wrestling team placed second in the 18-team East Ridge Ruckus individual wrestling tournament Saturday, Jan. 16.
Patrick McKee (106 pounds), Mitchell McKee (138), Jake Allar (160), and Jake Ross (220), each earned individual titles to lead the Knights. STMA had 191 team points behind team champion, Waconia-256 points. Third place was Forest Lake-156 points, then Mahtomedi-96, Chanhassen/Chaska-94.5, South St. Paul-90.5, Blaine-62, St. Croix Lutheran-79, Chisago Lakes-76.5, and Hopkins-75, as the top 10 teams.
Coach Dan Lefebvre was encouraged with the way the team competed, “We didn’t bring our full varsity team as we had to watch our individual match-counts, due to some of the big tournaments that we’ve been in this season. But, the guys we brought showed improvement and some good intensity and toughness and many got some varsity experience for the first time.”
Earning runnerup spots for the Knights were Zach Nygaard (113) and Max Jensen (220).
Zac Schoen (120) had 3 wins in placing 6th, Zach Dehmer (126) added 4 wins to take 5th place, Wyatt Bice (145) place 6th and picked up 3 wins, Nolan Schmitz (170) had 3 wins as he earned a 5th place, and Cole Jann (182) picked up a win, but did not place. Jake Allar (160) had 2 pins and 2 tech falls enroute to his individual title and Patrick McKee (106) had 3 pins in his 3 wins in dominating the 106 pound weight class. All of McKee’s pins were under 1 minute.
Knights Justin Cornell (113) and Kyle Elkie (120) each won individual titles in the JV division at East Ridge.
In other STMA wrestling news, the Knights defeated Buffalo in a Mississippi-8 Conference dual on Thursday January 14th at Buffalo by a score of 53-21. Individual results: 106-Brandon Psyk (STMA) won by tech fall over Ben Ruhr (Buffalo) 15-0; 113-Dylan Hanson (STMA) dec. over Tommy Samson (Buffalo) 5-4; 120-Zach Nygaard (STMA) pinned Hunter Newman (Buffalo) 2:56; 126-Zach Dehmer (STMA) pinned Jared Meyer (Buffalo) 3:20; 132-Charlie DesMaris (Buffalo) won by tech fall over Ethan Cornell (STMA) 15-0; 138-Riley Habisch (Buffalo) major dec. over Jared Mercado (STMA) 11-2; 145-Wyatt Bice (STMA) dec. over Caleb Drews (Buffalo) 6-3; 152-Cole Scherber (Buffalo) pinned Eathan Juusola (STMA) :32
160-Connor Fitzgerald (STMA) won by forfeit; 170-Garrett Ailts (STMA) pinned Fletcher Durand (Buffalo) :56; 182-Lucas Jeske (STMA) won by forfeit; 195-Brendan Thorpe (STMA) won by forfeit; 220-Adam Treptau (Buffalo) pinned Jake Ross (STMA) 3:41
285-Max Jensen (STMA) pinned Seamus Filkins (Buffalo) 2:54
The wrestlers have a busy weekend coming up as they travel to New Prague Thursday, Jan. 21, for a dual, then travel to Owatonna Friday Jan. 22, for a double dual at 5 PM, then at 6:30 PM, then travel to Robbinsdale Cooper for an 8-team individual tourney Saturday, Jan. 23.