The MHS grapplers put another conference notch in their belt with Thursday’s 54-15 triumph over D.C. Everest.
The Bluejays improved to 4-0 in the Valley heading into Thursday’s match at Wis. Rapids.
“I saw some good things,” MHS coach Scott Arneson said. “The kids appear to be in good shape and we had some good matches. We did well with what we had. We had some kids not feeling great.”
Gabe Nelles (285) opened with a fall in :57, but the Evergreens tied it up with decisions over Aiden Ball (106, 7-5) and Devon Schultz (113, 5-0). Nathan Beyer turned the tide with a 7-4 decision at 120 and D.C.E. would never lead again.
“I was pretty happy with Nathan’s win,” Arneson said. “He was wrestling against a kid with not a lot of losses. He’s starting to settle into his new weight class.”
Merrill boosted it to 24-6 with a 6-4 win from Hunter Welch (126) and pins from Scott T. Arneson (132, 1:36) and Cody Nicholson (138, 4:51). Everest made a little headway with a 4-0 win over Jaggar Scholz (4-0) and a pin of Dalton Clayton (152, 5:51).
“Jagger had a good match against a good kid,” Arneson said. “We’re keeping ourselves in matches so we are in position to win it with a big move.”
Merrill closed it out with pins from Mason Reinhardt (160, :47) and Tyler Schmidt (220, :42) wrapped around forfeits to Steve Fehlberg (170), David Pophal (182) and Ben Hintze (195).
“I’m waiting for us to wrestle as a unit,” Arneson said. “We’re not there, yet, but we’re starting to put it together. We’ve got some big tournaments coming up with Whitnall and Pulaski, and then the big run to the end. We’re wrestling a little more controlled and sticking with what works in practice.
“It’s only a month until regionals, so we’ve got about 18 practices left. There’s not time to add a lot of stuff. We’ve just got to fine-tune what we have.”