by Michael Smith Several high-quality teams competed in the Grain Valley Invitational wrestling tournament Saturday, December 4th.
After losing a handful of seniors from last season’s team, the host Eagles showed they will still have a strong team for the 2021-22 season. Grain Valley took fourth, finishing with 184.5 points, just four points behind third-place Van Horn. Liberty North won the tournament with 283 points. The Eagles had a pair of wrestlers win their brackets and five other place in the top four of their respective weight classes. Tanner Barker (152), who was a state qualifier last season at 138 pounds, got an impressive win in the finals against Odessa’s Shon Badder, who is a three-time state medalist and a one-time state champion. The Grain Valley junior overcame a 2-0 deficit and got a takedown and near fall in the third period to earn a 6-4 victory and improve to 7-0 on the season. “I wrestled him before and he had the same game plan and didn’t really switch it up,” Baker said of Badder. “I just kept snap faking and he was getting tired of it. I just pressured and he broke.” While Barker is someone who could make some noise for the Eagles this season, Dru Azcona (126) is a junior who could do the same. The two-time state qualifier got pins in four out of five of his tournament matches and capped it with a dominant 7-0 win against Fort Osage’s Rylan Mansfield. “It’s not going to be the last (win), that’s all I can say,” Azcona said. “I want to keep going and hopefully get to the top.” Gavin Parks (113) took second for the Eagles after winning his first four matches and getting pinned by Liberty North’s Michael Domino in his final bout. Jace Worthington (170) got pinned in the semifinals by Liberty North’s Nathan Sola, but rebounded for 11-0 major decision in the third-place match against Keaton Belsha. Colston Parks (106) was fifth, Brock Smith (120) was fourth, Tyler Groves (132) was fifth, Kollin Hanshuld (138) was fourth, O.T. Frederick (195) was fourth and Andrew Czeschin (285) was fifth. Comments are closed.
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