By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Ozark Tigers hosted a wrestling triangular on Thursday night, with Joplin and Willard participating. Ozark and Willard made quick work of the young and inexperienced Joplin Eagles, winning by decisive scores, 78-6 and 72-9, respectively. The dual between Ozark and Willard was tightly contested early on, with Willard pulling out the victory in the middle weights and above, 47-21.
The standout for the Joplin Eagles was senior Jacob Booe, who won both of his matches by pin fall. Booe, one of the few seniors on the team, feels like his role is to be a leader and encouragement to his teammates.
“We have a lot of inexperience just lacking some mat time, that’s all we need,” said Booe.”The underclassmen work hard, show up to practice every day, and do the stuff they need to, it’s just that we are going up against good teams that are full of upper classmen. We just need more mat time, more experience. My goal as a senior is to lead in a way where I show that I won’t respond badly if they lose; they are wrestling these guys who have been wrestling four years of varsity and they are on their first or second year. I’m trying to lead them into being better wrestlers. Honestly, I think it’s a good learning experience for me on how to lead and how to be patient.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE TRIANGULAR
Willard and Ozark hooked up in the final dual of the night in front of a loud crowd looking for an Ozark upset. Willard got out to a quick start after Christian Finley pinned Dylan Bilingsley in the first match of the dual. Ozark took the lead with three consecutive wins at 113, 120 and 126. Clayton Moison and Wyatt Snyder won by decision while Elijah Maskrod won by fall at 126 pounds. Willard would pull away after that by winning eight of the final 10 matches, making the final score 47-21.
“I was proud of their effort tonight, we fought hard,” said Ozark head coach Tod Sundlie. “We got beat by a better team and they got a lot of talent. Overall, I can’t complain about our effort at all. We lost a lot to graduation last year, for sure, but we feel good about the group we’ve got. We’re really excited about watching them improve all year long. I feel like, as high school coaches, our goal is to see how much we can improve in a season. We have a lot of good freshmen, a lot of sophomores on varsity this year. I’m very pleased about that, I think they’re getting valuable experience. We’ve got to keep the faith, trust the process, and keep working.”
One of the standouts for Willard was senior Tallon Heimbach, wrestling at 152. Heimbach was pleased with his team’s effort.
“We came out pretty strong the first match, the second match we were a little slow to start off and the guys from 145 and up and had to pick us up,” said Heimbach. “Mentally, I believe in what I do and practice every day. Physically you have to keep working every day, practice like you want to wrestle.”
Willard head coach Justin Wisdom has his Tigers in good form, starting off the season 7-0 in duals.
“We’ve been wrestling a lot these first couple of weeks,” said Wisdom. “I think we’re wrestling pretty good right now, it’s early, there’s a lot of season left, we’ve got a long ways to go. We had a great finish at the Neosho tournament in second place. We’ve got a great young group of kids, a good core group, our numbers are up so that helps in the practice room. I’ll give a little credit to Ozark, coming out and battling and grinding out some close wins early in the match. They battled us and put us in a situation where the team had to come together and get some wins later on in the lineup. We went ahead and put them away but they put us in a predicament where our teammates had to step up and take up for one another and that’s what they did.”
One thing Coach Wisdom addressed with his team in the post-match huddle was the importance of wrestling being not only an individual sport but also a team sport.
“We talk about the team aspect of wrestling in the practice room, we talk about it on bus rides, before and after matches,” said Wisdom. “Talking about victories, bonus points, losses, and that’s what happened tonight. We got kinda punched in the face there, right off the bat, with losing a couple of tight matches and then we had to have some young guys step up and put us back in it and get the momentum. These are all young kids that are getting those close match victories, the ones that gave us that momentum to win. I’m proud of tonight’s effort.”
Willard 78, Joplin 6
106: Christian Finley (WILLARD) over Rocky Walker (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:20)
113: Michael Finley (WILLARD) over Josiah Vaughn (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:49)
120: Oscar Martinez (WILLARD) over Brenden Evans (JOPLIN) (Fall 2:52)
126: Timothy Stevens (WILLARD) over Jack Stanley (JOPLIN) (Fall 0:19)
132: Jonah Peters (WILLARD) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
138: CJ Stanford (WILLARD) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
145: Ryder Heimbach (WILLARD) over Brayden Williams (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:27)
152: Tallon Heimbach (WILLARD) over Joshua Harryman (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:37)
160: Gavin Wallace (WILLARD) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
170: Jed Brandon (WILLARD) over Brayden Thomas (JOPLIN) (Fall 2:30)
182: Jonas Keohane (WILLARD) over Erin Sneed (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:12)
195: Gavin Killingsworth (WILLARD) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
220: Cameron Caldwell (WILLARD) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
285: Jacob Booe (JOPLIN) over Austin Webb (WILLARD) (Fall 1:45)
Willard 47, Ozark 21
106: Christian Finley (WILLARD) over Dylan Billingsley (OZARK) (Fall 0:49)
113: Clayton Moison (OZARK) over Michael Finley (WILLARD) (Dec 5-2)
120: Wyatt Snyder (OZARK) over Oscar Martinez (WILLARD) (Dec 6-4)
126: Elijah Maskrod (OZARK) over Timothy Stevens (WILLARD) (Fall 3:52)
132: Jonah Peters (WILLARD) over Ethan Middleton (OZARK) (Fall 1:19)
138: CJ Stanford (WILLARD) over Owen Harris (OZARK) (Dec 4-0)
145: Ryder Heimbach (WILLARD) over Kaleb Doyle (OZARK) (TF 15-0 3:49)
152: Tallon Heimbach (WILLARD) over Caden Bench (OZARK) (Fall 1:06)
160: Kale Conway (OZARK) over Gavin Wallace (WILLARD) (Fall 0:54)
170: Jed Brandon (WILLARD) over Chance Strickler (OZARK) (Fall 1:29)
182: Jonas Keohane (WILLARD) over Max Schilling (OZARK) (Dec 10-8)
195: Gavin Killingsworth (WILLARD) over Colby Allen (OZARK) (Fall 1:31)
220: Hunter Tennison (OZARK) over Cameron Caldwell (WILLARD) (Dec 6-2)
285: Austin Webb (WILLARD) over Trent Elkins (OZARK) (Fall 2:12)
Ozark 72, Joplin 9
106: Dylan Billingsley (OZARK) over Rocky Walker (JOPLIN) (Fall 3:44)
113: Clayton Moison (OZARK) over Josiah Vaughn (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:04)
120: Wyatt Snyder (OZARK) over Brenden Evans (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:31)
126: Elijah Maskrod (OZARK) over Jack Stanley (JOPLIN) (Fall 0:36)
132: Ethan Middleton (OZARK) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
138: Owen Harris (OZARK) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
145: Brayden Williams (JOPLIN) over Kaleb Doyle (OZARK) (Dec 6-5)
152: Caden Bench (OZARK) over Joshua Harryman (JOPLIN) (Fall 1:12)
160: Kale Conway (OZARK) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
170: Chance Strickler (OZARK) over Brayden Thomas (JOPLIN) (Fall 5:46)
182: Max Schilling (OZARK) over Erin Sneed (JOPLIN) (Fall 2:54)
195: Colby Allen (OZARK) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
220: Hunter Tennison (OZARK) over (JOPLIN) (For.)
285: Jacob Booe (JOPLIN) over Trent Elkins (OZARK) (Fall 2:26)
