The defending Class 2 state champs Oak Grove dominated the team competition at the Monett Wrestling Tournament on Saturday.
They were nearly 84 points ahead of Willard with 410 team points. Willard finished second with 326.5, followed by Clinton High School out of Oklahoma in third place with 243.5, and the host team Monett finished fourth with 218.
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The Willard Tigers had four individual champions on the day with Niko Chavez (138), Kyle Caldwell (160), Christian Smart (182) and Hunter Yeargan (195) all taking first place in their weight class.
“To start the day, we started really well,” said Willard head coach Justin Wisdom. “We had some kids go out and beat some kids who were seeded ahead of us, so we got out to a fast start. We kind of stubbed our toe there in about the fourth round. We had some tough matches slip away from us. But we came back pretty strong. We had twelve wrestlers today and ten of them wrestled in the finals or the third place match. So ten of them placed in the top four in a tournament of this caliber, it’s a pretty good day. It’s something to build on, but at the same time it’s something to be pleased with today.”
Senior Kyle Caldwell defeated Tristan Stack from Oak Grove in Round 5 of pool play with a 14-4 major decision to advance to the championship round. There he handed Bentonville’s Luke Brandon just his second loss of the year with another major decision 11-2.
“He wrestled real tough today,” said Wisdom of Caldwell. “He beat a good Oak Grove kid, majored him, handled that match really well. In his finals match, he wrestled a state champ from Arkansas. He was never in jeopardy in that match, ended up majoring that kid pretty handily. So it was a real good tournament for Kyle.”
“I feel pretty good,” said Caldwell. “I feel more comfortable on my feet. I got way better on my top. I’m looking forward to state and taking first.”
Four Willard wrestlers took third place in the tournament as well, including Caldwell’s younger brother, freshman Cameron Caldwell at 170 pounds. He defeated Clayton Chappell from Bolivar in a 6-0 decision in the third place match.
Nevada’s senior Dayton Miller, a returning state runner-up in Class 2, faced a familiar opponent in the 126-pound title match. Miller defeated fellow senior Sean Jastal from Monett by fall in the second period.
“That was Sean. I’ve wrestled him ever since my first year wrestling,” said Miller. “He beat me my freshman year in the district finals and he hasn’t beaten me since, but we’ve always been a good match together. We always meet each other in the finals. So we’ve been competing with each other for a long time.”
Shawn Kavadas from Oak Grove defeated Miller in last year’s 126-pound state title bout in Columbia. Kavadas took first place in the 132-pound championship match on Saturday. He was one of a whopping seven Oak Grove champs in this Monett Tournament. No Oak Grove wrestler finished worse than seventh on Saturday.
“If you look in here, there are state champs, medalists, I mean it was tough,” said Monett coach Daryl Bradley. “[Walnut Grove] won our state last year. They’re good, they’re well-coached and well-disciplined and they looked like they were having fun out there. They just have a great tradition. They’ve won sixteen state titles. When you think Missouri wrestling, you think Oak Grove. Just to have them here is a privilege. You can attract good teams from other areas, so I’m proud of that fact and it’s good to see them. We gotta learn that we can wrestle with them. I think we can. But we’ve got a long way to go. It’s just good to see that competition this early.”
Monett had four wrestlers finish runner-up on Saturday including Jastal (126), Onis Howard (132), Desmond Hill (152) and Angel Villalta in the heavyweight title bout.
Coach Bradley says that this home tournament is just part of the process to improve as the district and state tournaments approach.
“All this, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “To be honest, it doesn’t matter. We’re ready to roll into districts, because it’s going to fly by. We’ve got another month left and our season is going to be over for a lot of these kids, so we’re just hoping to continue that tradition… We’ve won districts two out of the last three years, and we’ve been runner-up the other year. So we expect nothing but a top-two finish again, qualify eight-to-ten kids in there, and that’s our goal. And then see what happens at state. Bring home some medals. That’s the goal every year. And I think we can do that if we keep coming together and work and continue to get better.”
Coach Wisdom shared a similar sentiment.
“Ultimately teams want to peak at the right time,” said Wisdom. “The good things we’re seeing right now is we’re improving. We don’t want to stay stagnant; we want to keep climbing the ladder every week, every competition. So yeah, districts is obviously what we wrestle for all year, and with our district, it’s pretty tough. So as far as I’m concerned right now, we’re taking the right steps.”
