Nine members of the Emporia High wrestling team wrestled well enough to advance to the medal rounds Saturday at the Arkansas City Tournament.
But once they got there, those nine Spartans found little success, as all nine lost their medal-round bouts.
Emporia High fared well enough to finish fourth as a team with 125.5 points, behind only Class 6A power Goddard (182), Stillwater, Okla., (165.5), and Yukon, Okla., (148), but it was the disappointing showings late in the tournament that left EHS coach Greg Buckbee wanting more from his squad.
“I thought we wrestled pretty decent until we got to the medal rounds,” Buckbee said. “We had nine chances and lost them all, and that’s frustrating.”
Emporia High actually advanced five wrestlers to the championship matches of their respective weight classes, but all five lost and had to settle for second place.
Garrett Jones of Arkansas City defeated Jared Dakin at 112 pounds, Cameron Wells of Yukon defeated Justin Rose at 119 pounds, Trent Cox of Andale defeated Sal Tovar at 125 pounds, Brent Fisher of Goddard defeated Logan Gaskill at 152 pounds and Mike Walker of Stillwater defeated Lorenzo Cerna at 285 pounds.
Another four EHS wrestlers ended up in the third-place matches, but again, all four lost, giving EHS four fourth-place finishers.
Tim Dunham of Maize beat Chase Sanchez at 130 pounds, Corey Duncan of Yukon beat Tavo Dikin at 135 pounds, Reed Clanahan of Stillwater beat Taylor Lee at 145 pounds and Wes Talley of Stillwater beat Jordan Barr at 215 pounds.
“We just couldn’t find a way to win,” Buckbee said, “and that’s something that we’re going to have to address.
“Everything I saw is fixable. We’ve just got to fix it now.”
Despite the late-tournament slip-ups, Emporia, the fourth-ranked team in Class 5A, did wrestle well enough to finish as the second highest team from Kansas at the tournament, including finishing ahead of Arkansas City, the second-ranked team in Class 5A. Arkansas City finished sixth with 104 points.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy Buckbee, though.
“I was so disapponted with the way we finished and the way some of our upperclassmen wrestled that, yeah, we finished above everybody (from Kansas) but Goddard, but we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. “But we’ll figure things out. This is not the time to panic. It’s still December.”
Emporia High is back in action Tuesday when it travels to Blue Valley North for a double dual against Blue Valley North and Shawnee Heights.
Arkansas City Tournament
Saturday at Arkansas City
Team Scores
1. Goddard 182, 2. Stillwater (Okla.), 165.5, 3. Yukon-Red (Okla.), 148, 4. Emporia 125.5, 5. Maize 104.5, 6. Arkansas City 104, 7. Andale 69, 8. Yukon-White (Okla.) 27, 9. Wichita West 4.