By Riley Bean
Springfield, MO – It took some clutch wins down the stretch, but the Buffalo Bison held on in the team standings to take home the Kinloch Tournament trophy on Friday evening.
Buffalo crowned just one individual champion, but they were able to finish atop the standings with 395 points, barely edging Rolla with 389 points. Ozark finished third with 379.5, followed by Bentonville (340.5), Ray-Pec (328), and McDonald County (304.5).
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The team title was in jeopardy throughout the championship rounds with Rolla nipping at the Bison’s heals.
But with sophomore Floyd Miller pinning his opponent in the 160-pound title match, and junior Shane Sisco taking third place at 285-pounds with a pin of his own, Buffalo was able to hold on and secure the tournament championship.
“I’m just humbled. Our team came out and it was a team effort,” said Buffalo coach Nate Kenady. “We had two days of really hard wrestling. Yesterday we came out real strong and got in the lead, and we were able to hold that lead today. We started to trade jabs back and forth in the final matches with Rolla. They were leap frogging and we were going back and forth. Fortunately, some of our seniors and our heavyweight came out on top at the end to put us ahead.”
The Bison also had two third-place finishers, two fourth-place finishers and a fifth-place finisher that accumulated valuable team points down the stretch.
Miller, who improved to 21-1 after his championship win Friday, won by fall over St. Clair’s Codie Stroup with just three seconds left in the second period.
“I knew I needed that pin for the team,” Miller said. “It’s really good helping the team out more than just individually. You can win the tournament individually, but the team is way better.”
“He’s a true student of the game,” Kenady said of Miller. “He’s got a lot of character and he wrestled smart and wrestled well and got us a pin. A collaborative effort got us the win.”
Rolla had four finalists in the championship bouts and managed three individual champs. Zach Fennell (126 pounds), Tristan Barr (132 pounds) and Gage Maxwell (152 pounds) each left the Kinloch with a gold medal. Coleman Brainard (138 pounds) had to exit due to a medical forfeit in his first-place match with Warrensburg’s Taylor Brown.
Barr remained undefeated (23-0) with his 8-3 decision victory over Mikey Crocker from St. James in the 132-pound title match. He and Crocker had faced off against each other as youth wrestlers.
“It was a battle,” said the senior Barr. “We’ve had some great back-and-forth and I knew this was going to be tough going into it, but I finish. I’m here for business. I don’t take no crap. So I did what I was supposed to, I went out there and fought hard and won it.”
Friday represents a second chance for Barr, who was held out of last year’s Kinloch Tournament due to an injury.
“[This tournament] has really opened my eyes,” he said. “I didn’t get to wrestle last year in the Kinloch because of a broken shoulder. But I came back a couple weeks after. The Kinloch is a very great tournament and there are a lot of great kids and to come out in first is pretty awesome.”
Ozark had wrestlers in two championship bouts on Friday, including sophomore Jake Nickols who defeated Republic’s Michael Taylor in an 8-2 decision in the 113-pound weight class.
“I felt pretty good,” said Nickols. “I’ve known [Taylor] since USA, so I kind of knew how to wrestle him. At first he started off aggressive and then kind of slowed back, and I kind of took it over from there.”
Junior Jace Gorn also made it to the championship bout for Ozark. He fell to Ray-Pec’s Genesis Combs in a tough match in the heavyweight division (285 pounds) that went to a 5-1 decision.
As for the Bison, they are in the midst of a terrific season and hope to keep things rolling all the way to Columbia. Coach Kenady considers this big tournament win as a stepping stone towards achieving their ultimate goal.
“We continue to talk about it, it’s a process,” Kenady said. “This is just one more step to where we want to be. We’ve scheduled some tough tournaments this year, some tough two-day tournaments and ultimately we want to be holding up hardware in February.”
“This season, I want to be a state champion,” said Miller. “I lost last year and ended up getting fifth, but the kids that ended up beating me are all going to college, so the kids that did beat me were pretty good. So hopefully this year, you know my one loss, that has kind of lit me up. And being last year getting fifth, I just want to go in and I just want to dominate everybody.”
