KEARNEY, Neb. – Fresh off a dual win over Wayland Baptist on Thursday night, the Cloud County Community College wrestling team would place two wrestlers in the top-five at the University of Nebraska-Kearney Younes Hospitality Invitational hosted at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds in Kearney, Nebraska on Saturday.
CCCC's two placers would come at the 125-pound and 133-pound weight classes as Blake Leiszler would take fourth-place in the 133-pound division while Blayne Harris would wrestle his way to a fifth-place finish in the 125-pound weight class.
Both Lieszler and Harris would earn wins in each of their first three matches of the day to make the semifinal round of their weight classes before seeing defeat as Leiszler would earn a win in the consolation semifinals before dropping the third-place match to Jacob Svlhel of the University of Wyoming. Leiszler's other wins would come with a 2:17 fall of Lucas Glover (Colorado Mesa, a 6-4 decision over Kobe Lepe (Chadron State, and 7-1 decision over Adam Nolte of Otero Junior College.
Harris fell to Darrick Stacey of Wyoming in the semifinal round and would drop a 3-1 decision to Quinn Molofchik of Air Force to go to the fifth place match where he would earn a no contest win over Sebastian Peterson of Colorado Mesa who would be unable to wrestle due to having met the six-match daily limit to make the fifth-place match.
Joel Ostrom would also get off to a strong start at 141 pounds by earning a pair of falls over Wyatt Peverill of Ottawa University and Nick Corla of York College before dropping matches to Adrian Zubia of Texas Wesleyan and Edrich Nortje of Hastings College to finish his day 2-2 overall.
Nate Normandin would also earn two wins on Saturday, picking up a fall over Cole Hoffman of Northwest Kansas Tech and a 12-2 major decision over Taylor Cottam of Colorado Mesa in the 149 pound weight class while falling to Nico Carrasco of Adams State (11-5 decision) and Melvin Hernandez of Iowa Western (Fall at 2:01).
Other wins by T-Bird wrestlers on Saturday would come from Quentin Jiner at 165 pounds (11-3 major decision over Dylan Archuleta of Bethany College, Toby Gavette at 125 pounds (8-4 decision over Cortez Castellanos of Texas Wesleyan, and Albert Werden at 133 pounds (10-8 decision over Dylan Arijo of Otero Junior College).
What's next?
Cloud County will have 10 days off ahead of their next competition, returning to dual action on Wednesday with a dual at Iowa Western Community College Council Bluffs, Iowa.
--cloudtbirds.com--