The Bluejay wrestling team took a tough loss in the opening week of the Valley season at D.C. Everest last Thursday. The Evergreens overcame two extra forfeits and a 24-9 deficit to close fast and capture a 36-32 victory.
“I’m a little upset by the loss,” MHS coach Scott Arneson said. “Any time a team gives you 18 points and you still lose, it isn’t good. It’s frustrating because it’s hard to pinpoint any specific reason it happened. It’s my job to get the kids ready and obviously I didn’t do something right. But some of it has to come from inside,
“Hopefully all the kids evaluate their performance and change their performance next week. I’m not willing to jump ship. I think we’ve got a great group of guys and can still win the regional tournament. This is just a little bump in the road. No NFL teams are undefeated and some team is still going to be the Super Bowl champs. We’ve got to find a way to be a team, not a bunch of individuals that are on a team.”
The Jays collected six wins, including three from forfeit (Brandon McCarthy at 160, Mason Reinhardt at 182 and Riley Kurtz at 195) in the first four matches. After Collin Zoellner (220) was pinned in 3:54, Christian Kleinschmidt (285) matched it with a pin in :50 to make it 24-15.
Following a double forfeit at 106, Aidan Ball (113, fall 3:04), Devon Schultz (120, 9-3) and Brendan Leder (132, 1:46) all dropped matches. Compounded with a Merrill forfeit at 126, D.C.E. held a 30-24 lead. The Jays rebounded into a 32-30 lead with back-to-back major decisions by Hunter Welch (138, 11-1) and Scott T. Arneson (145, 16-4). But in the final match, Tanner Pettit (152) was pinned in 1:19.
“We had guys get pinned that probably weren’t pinned all last year,” Arneson said. “All we needed was one little break and this seemed to be the opposite of it.
“Scottie wrestled up two weight classes so we could get Hunter in. They both wrestled really solid matches.”