Cyclones advance three to state wrestling meet

Carter Bendorf earns district title at 170; Lemon and Schwery also qualify for state via overtime victories

 ATLANTIC (Feb. 15) -- The final results could have been a little bit better, but Harlan Community will take it.
 That was the bottom line on Saturday as the Cyclones placed fifth out of 12 teams and emerged with three state qualifiers at the Class 2A, District 2 Wrestling Tournament held in Atlantic.
 HCHS senior Carter Bendorf dominated his four-man bracket at 170 pounds for first place while senior Ethan Lemon and junior Jesse Schwery both placed second at 126 and 220, respectively. All three Cyclones advanced to the 2020 State Wrestling Tournament set for February 20-22 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.
 Jeremiah Davis placed third at 285 for HCHS after being pinned by Atlantic’s Cale Roller in a wrestleback for true second. The Cyclones’ five other district qualifiers all went 0-2 on the day and placed fourth: Sammy Schmitz (106), Luke Freund (113), Luke Musich (120), Mason Griffith (152) and Zane Bendorf (160).
 Musich lost a pair of one-point decisions to cut short his state meet hopes, including a 1-0 defeat at the hands of fourth-ranked Ben Schmitz (Kuemper Catholic) in the third-place match.
 Two other very exciting matches went the Cyclones’ way, however. Lemon outlasted Red Oak’s Dawson Bond 7-6 in the second stage of overtime to win his wrestleback for second place. Earlier in the day, Schwery beat Kuemper’s Cal Wanninger 8-6 in a semifinal that also went OT and keyed his path to state.
 “I guess I’d classify it as a good district (meet) for us,” said HCHS head coach John Murtaugh. “It was a good district, (not) a great one. I think great would have been four-plus going (to state), but we’ll take the three and see what happens.”
 Red Oak won the district meet title with 98 points while Winterset (86), Atlantic/CAM (75), Creston/O-M (50.5) and HCHS (49) rounded out the top five.
 Winterset boasted the most state qualifiers with five, followed by Red Oak and Atlantic with four each. Nine out of 12 District 2 teams will be taking at least two wrestlers to state.
 The Cyclones were hindered by a slow start that saw them lose seven of nine first-round matches - five of them by pin.

 
 

 

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