By Cody Thorn (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Though the total number of state championship performances were low, the wins that did happen were monumental.
Nathan Pulliam closed his career at Rolla out with yet another win and another state title. A little bit after that, Neosho’s Cayden Auch became the 35th wrestler to win a state championship all four years of high school.
Friday night was capped by Carl Junction’s Jesse Cassatt winning a second straight title, tying a mark at his school that has stood since 1987.
Add a pair of team trophies for area teams – Neosho in second and Lebanon in fourth – there were plenty of highlights from the Class 3 MSHSAA Wrestling Championships at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence.
Auch becomes Neosho’s first four-time champion
Auch finished his career with a 49-0 season this year and claimed the 160-pound championship. Overall, he finished with a 202-6 record – a mark that will put him fifth all-time in MSHSAA history. The group above him features a pair of Neosho wrestlers, Kyler Rea and Nate Rodriguez at 212 and 210, respectively. Right ahead of Auch is Olympian J’den Cox, who had 205.
Auch had been tied with Rodriguez for the most state titles with three.
The win for Auch, who will head to Arkansas-Little Rock to wrestle, was the only one despite having six Wildcats in the finals.
“They are family and wanted to finish the way we did,” said Auch, who hugged each of his teammates, many of whom were still visibly upset by their results even after the state runner-up photo was taken. “We like to win and Jeremy (Phillips), he likes to win; no one likes to lose and we all take it personal. It is something we have worked for and tried for and we did the best we could. We want to change the results but we can’t, all we can do is learn from it.”
Two of those final losses came head-to-head against Whitfield, which allowed it take first after entering the finals with a 16-point lead over Neosho.
Raymond Hembree finished as the runner-up for the second year in a row at 106, falling 6-0 to Porter Matecki of Whitfield. Hembree finished the year with a 41-7 mark. Landon Kivett reached the finals at 120 but lost to a defending state champion in Evan Binder, the Whitfield star who finished the year 43-0. Kivett went 3-1 on the day and capped the year with a 32-8 mark. Sophomore Eli Zar also finished second for the Wildcats, losing to Pacific’s Callum Sitek, who put the finishing touches on a 52-0 season with an 8-0 major decision. Zar (36-8) beat the fifth-place (Whitfield’s Logan Ferrero) and third-place (Platte County’s Eli Rocha) finishers on the way to the medal.
Seniors Eric Holt and Jeremiah Larson were the final two medalists for the Wildcats, both coming up second in state title matches. Holt (41-9) lost the 170-pound by a pin against Hannibal’s Trevor Wilson. Larson (195) saw his perfect season come to an end after losing to Grain Valley’s Hunter Newsom, 6-5, in the finals.
Hayden Crane (132) took third for the Wildcats, his only loss was to eventual state champion Eli Ashcroft of Kearney in the semifinals. Crane, 39-10, ended with a 10-8 decision over Hazelwood East’s Eittien Rogers.
The Wildcats never could catch up to Whitfield despite some head-to-head wins as the private school had 11 qualifiers – five of whom won state championships.
Phillips lamented the loss of some would-be-varsity wrestlers and noted some of them could’ve helped make the difference.
Pulliam wins third straight, finishes career with one loss
Pulliam closed his career with 95 straight wins and secured his third straight state title by winning at 152 pounds. The future Missouri wrestler beat Kearney’s Ben Locke, Hillsboro’s Griffin Ray and Bolivar’s Tyson Moore on the way to the championship to finish the year 29-0.
The foes were pretty stout too with only a combined 10 losses this year.
Pulliam made the finals all four years and finished his career with a 144-1 record. That number could’ve been higher had it not been for a variety of injuries the past three years.
Prior to his arrival, the Bulldogs had only one individual champion in the sport.
“It is a great feeling,” Pulliam said. “People say he is just No. 1, but I earned that spot. I lost my finals match my freshman year and I had 49 wins and one loss. I did pretty good but I told myself if I think of the past I won’t have success in the future. People will bring it up but they are living in the past and I’m not.”
Pulliam called this one his toughest of the three titles, a combination of the winning streak, the elongated season and how the match went. He was facing off against an undefeated Moore, then 23-0 and they were tied at 3-3 going into the third period. Pulliam let Moore up early and fell behind. Pulliam got a takedown and near fall to push the lead to 8-4 on the way to a 10-6 victory.
“I was confident in him and his abilities,” Rolla coach Marty Hauck said. “He was starting to open and starting to push the tempo in the second. I knew he was ready to get going. I have been blessed with many great kids and he is a special one.”
Cassatt goes back-to-back
Carl Junction’s Jesse Cassatt won his second straight state title in a 5-2 win over Whitfield’s Chase Brock at 182 pounds. It took Cassatt a little longer than he was anticiapting to get to the mat.
Cassatt was about to hit the mat for this final when a message started going off at the arena saying a fire alarm had been activated and everyone was forced to evacuate.
The warning played for about five minutes, which sent MSHSAA officials, arena workers and police officers at the arena trying to get people out.
Only moments later an announcement said for people to return and the fire alarm was a false trigger.
“I was jumping and up and down and ready to go,” Cassatt said. “I didn’t know what to do. I had to regain my focus and I came back out ready.”
“I’ll admit I was worried he might lose some of his focus,” Frizzell said. “He has been lasered-focused all day and I thought it might interrupt that, but Jesse is Jesse. The concentration on that kid is unbelievable. He can stare through a steel beam.”
Once back on the mat, Cassatt and Brock wrestled tight throughout most of the first two periods, but a late second-period takedown gave Cassatt breathing room.
“We got the takedown at the end of the second and sealed it for me,” Frizzell said of his thoughts on when he knew Cassatt had it won. “He wasn’t going to take Jesse down. I was pretty confident and I’m sure Jesse’s confidence just grew from there too.”
Cassatt finished the season with a perfect 50-0 record.
“It is amazing and it is great to know I will walk into the (wrestling) room and I will have two photos up there and one will say I was 50-0,” Cassatt said. “First, God blessed me with this ability to go out there and compete. I’m so thankful for what he has given me and what he has done for me the last few seasons.”
Lebanon finishes fourth
Lebanon, which dominated the sectional meet on Feb. 27 with Neosho there, finished fourth and brought home the second team trophy in a row by taking fourth.
Of the 10 Yellowjackets at state, six of them brought home medals but none reached the finals.
“We got a young group and we are excited for next year,” Lebanon coach Randy Roark said. “There was a little more pressure; when you throw in Whitfield and Neosho, they took home a lot of medals and for everyone else it’s a lot less mental mistakes.
Medalists for Lebanon were Drew Bowling (106/3rd); Canon Roark (120/3rd); Colt Adkins (170/3rd); Jake Henson (195/6th); Jayden Hubler (220/5th) and Zachary Smith (285/6th).
The only loss for Bowling came to eventual 113-pound champion Matecki, while Roark fell to Binder, a back-to-back champion in the semifinals. Atkins lost to state champion Trevor Wilson of Hannibal, 6-4, in the semifinals. Henson lost his first match against eventual state champion Newsom in the first round and then kept winning until the fifth-place match.
Finalists and Medalists
Three other area wrestlers made the finals but came up short in the quest for gold.
McDonald County’s Blaine Ortiz lost to Whitfield’s Alexander Rallo in the 113-pound finals by a 12-0 major decision. Ortiz, a sophomore, was 33-3 this year.
Branson’s Kyshin Isringhausen was looking to become only the second state champion in the sport from Branson but lost in the 126-pound finals 9-4 against Gavin Linsman – despite jumping ahead of the freshman, 4-0. Isringhausen finished with a 34-4 mark.
Marshfied’s lone medalist was senior Daylon Kanegieter, who knocked off Huchteman but then lost in the title match against Whitfield’s Keith Miley by a decision, 3-1.
In the final match of the Class 3 meet, Camdenton’s Dakota Davis fell to a two-time Jacobi Jackson by a 6-3 decision. Davis had a 56-2 mark this year.
Camdenton also got a medal from Grant Garrett, as the senior took third place with a 4-2 decision over Dalton Litzinger of Hillsboro. Garrett finished his season with a 55-2 record – and one of the losses came against Class 138 champion Jacob Mann.
Bolivar added two other placers: Drayton Huchteman and Jack Roweton.
A two-time runner-up in Class 2, Huchteman took third in his first year at Class 3 in 220-pounds. The senior (40-2) lost in the semifinals to Kanegieter but beat McDonald County’s Sam Murphy in the third-place match by a 10-2 major decision. Roweton (285) went 4-1 and capped his day with a pin in 33 seconds over Smith from Lebanon. Roweton (29-19) only lost to back-to-back champion Jacobi Jackson of DeSmet Jesuit.
Along with Pulliam’s state title, Rolla got medals from Hayden Fane (182) and Alexander Sederburg (145). Fane placed fifth, bouncing back from an opening-round upset against Vianney’s Roman Graiff, who got a 4-2 win. Fane won the next three and finished 38-4 on the year and Alexander took sixth and was 46-4 this year.
Carl Junction and Webb City each had two that brought home hardware. Lukas Walker (106) took fifth for the Bulldogs. The Cardinals got a third-place showing from Jacob Ott (195) and Roger Carranco (182) was sixth.
Willard brought home three medals, headlined by Ryder Heimbach taking third place at 160. Christian Finley (126) was fifth and Timothy Stevens (152) finished sixth.
Finley, a returning state champion, was upset in the quarterfinals by Whitfield freshman Gavin Linsman, who pinned him. Finley (51-5) won the next three to close out his career.
“The goal was to win it but sometimes things happen,” Finley said. “It was a tough pill to swallow. I’m glad I was able to come back and get the next best thing.”
