Saturday yielded a lot of success for RPAC Wrestlers. Of course, when you make it to Saturday at State, you are coming home with a medal. And at the end of the consolation matches, there were three 3rd place finishes, one 5th, and one 6th.
Girls are not separated by class. RPAC boy's wrestlers were all in Class D. The wrestlers are separated by weight within the blog.
Let's take a look at how RPAC wrestlers fared on the final day in Omaha.
Consolation Semi-finals
Madelyn Tryon of Southwest at 190 pounds, fell to Ammy Arroyo of Summerland in 4:28 and moved to the 5th/6th place medal match.
At 120 pounds, Braxton Hammond of Southern Valley pinned Gavin Patterson of Wilcox-Hildreth, whom he defeated in the tournament's first match, in 2:46 to clinch his 150th career win and wrestle for 3rd and 4th.
At 132 pounds, Briggs Hill of Arapahoe won by a 4-2 decision over Calvin Caraher of Franklin to advance to the 3rd and 4th place match.
At 157, Hunter Perks of Cambridge pinned Jairo Lazos of Central Valley in 4:11 and advanced to the 3rd and 4th place match.
At 190 pounds, Jeremy Felix of Alma lost to Coy Vrbka of Shelby-Rising City by a 3-1 decision and moved to wrestle in the 5th and 6th place match.
5th/6th place matches
For the girls at 190, Tryon of Southwest finished in 6th place as she was beaten by Ali Edwards of Grand Island by a 7-3 decision. She is the first RPAC female wrestler to medal at state since the inception of the girls' division was added.
At 190 pounds, Felix of Alma won. by decision over Chase Thomas of Neligh-Oakdale, 5-3 to place 5th.
3rd/4th place matches
At 120 pounds, Hammond of Southern Valley placed 3rd as he defeated Treu Atkins of SEM by major decision, 11-1. We caught up with Braxton and chatted after his match about his 150th career win, "that was awesome. That was the plan but thought it would be in the semifinals but it ended up happening in the match heading into the semifinals, it was awesome." He also talked about his 3rd place finish, "I am happy to end it 2-0... I only had two losses down here my whole career but yeah, it feels awesome."
At 132 pounds, Hill of Arapahoe defeated Dawson Mason of South Loup by a 4-3 decision to place 3rd. We chatted with Briggs after the win to chat about the weekend as a whole but also about his final match of the day about his thoughts. "Into that third and fourth place match, I only got one more and then I am done, I'll just give it my all and go to war and take it to 'em."
At 157 pounds, Perks of Cambridge pinned Caden Larsen of Ravenna in 1:33 to place 3rd. This is the Trojans' first 3rd place since head coach, Catlin Rice in 2010. We had the chance to visit with Hunter about the entire weekend and the injury that he had to face from yesterday's match. "I've fought injuries for many years now, so I wasn't going to let one more stop me from my main goal of winning and keep on winning."
It was a solid weekend of wrestling for the conference and the kids represented well in Omaha.