The Emporia High wrestling team split a pair of duals Tuesday night at Blue Valley North, defeating the host school Blue Valley North, 47-20, before falling to Centennial League foe Shawnee Heights, 36-31.
Emporia High coach Greg Buckbee said he saw some improvement from his squad.
“I thought we competed better than we did on Saturday,” Buckbee said. “We wrestled better — our technique was better.”
Against Blue Valley North, four Spartans pinned their opponent to win their matches. Sal Tovar at 125 pounds defeated Kyle Taylor, Zeb Peak at 140 pounds beat Jacobs Hoopes, Logan Gaskill at 152 pounds beat Graham Funk and Jordan Barr at 215 pounds defeated Steven Watts.
Taylor Lee at 145 pounds also got a technical fall against Will Fuehr.
Four other Spartans won their matches, as Justin Rose at 119 pounds defeated Zack Tannenbaum, 7-3, and Lorenzo Serna at 285 pounds downed Matt Lousman, 1-0, while both Jared Dakin (112) and Ryan Bass (189) won their matches by default.
Dropping their matches were Tyler Trahoon (103), Chase Sanchez (130), Tavo Dikin (135), Caleb Chiroy (160) and Nathan Rodriguez (171).
The Spartans then moved on to Shawnee Heights, and despite holding a 31-12 lead with five matches left, the Spartans struggled in the higher weight classes to eventually lose to Heights by five points.
“Coming down the stretch against Shawnee Heights, that was a little frustrating,” Buckbee said. “We kind of had a letdown there toward the end. We had a nice lead and let it get away.”
EHS got victories from Dakin, Tovar and Peak in the early going, with all three wins coming by pins. Rose also got a major-decision victory, while Sanchez, Dikin and Gaskill all earned wins as well.
But the Spartans lost all five of their final matches, with the last two — Barr against Matt Colovich and Serna against Atticus Disney — coming by pins, which was enough to vault Heights past EHS for the dual victory.
Emporia High will be back in action on Friday when it travels to Manhattan.