The Immaculata wrestling season was cut short Saturday when none of the Raiders were able to qualify state out of the 3-2-1A regional at Rossville. Four Immaculata grapplers were within one win of a trip to state, but Van Nine, Brad Holcomb, Alan Gilbert and Jacob O’Neil were each defeated in the consolation semifinals to fall out of contention.
Although head coach Larry O’Donnell said he was sad to see the season end short of state, he said he was happy with how his squad performed.
“Even though nobody qualified for state, I was really pleased with how the kids wrestled,” O’Donnell said. “Even though it’s a bummer to not get anybody to state, we obviously had a chance to get four or five.”
At 112 pounds, Immaculata’s Nine won his first match when he pinned Rock Creek’s Zac Rieck in the first period. The sophomore lost his next two bouts, however, and narrowly missed a trip to the 3-2-1A state meet in Hays.
“He wrestled extremely well,” O’Donnell said.
Holcomb, a junior wrestling at 130, recovered from a first-round loss to win three straight before losing a tight decision in the consolation semifinals. In the quarterfinals Holcomb was able to avenge an earlier loss in dominating fashion when he earned a 14-7 win over Mission Valley’s Chisholm Miller.
“We knew that would be a tough match,” O’Donnell said, “but he ended up just dominating. He did a great job.”
In his final loss, Holcomb had knotted the bout at 2-2 heading into the third period before Sabetha’s Chad Aberle was able to notch the 4-2 win.
“I thought Brad wrestled the best he’d done in a long time,” O’Donnell said.
Gilbert, a senior, missed a return trip to state by just one point. The 135-pounder pinned his first two opponents before losing two matches by one point each to end his season. Marysville Eddie Creek edged the senior 2-1 before Nathan Ellerman of Council Grove ended Gilbert’s run with a 5-4 defeat.
“In that 2-1 match, the major difference ... was a penalty call,” O’Donnell said, explaining that Gilbert was whistled for stalling in the third period. “(The consolation semifinals) was another close match. He was down 5-2 with a few seconds left and scored a takedown on the guy. He was in the match the whole way, it was just that the other kid got a takedown to begin the match and in consolation matches the first period is only a minute, so he didn’t have a whole lot of time to recover.”
O’Neil went 3-2 at 145 pounds to just miss qualifying for state. He also pinned his first-round opponent, but was pushed into the consolation bracket by a loss in the second round. The junior recovered with another pin and a 6-4 win over Aaron Halling from Doniphan West before falling 6-2 to Onaga’s Cody Schwant to finish his season.
“Jacob lost 6-2 to a kid who earlier in the year had beat him pretty soundly,” O’Donnell said. “Going into the third period it was a 3-2 match, with Jacob only down one. ... I was really pleased with how he wrestled all weekend.”
Although the season ended abruptly, O’Donnell said he was pleased to see the progress his team made in 2009-2010 and that he was already looking forward to the future.
“It makes you excited for next year knowing we’ve got some good freshmen, sophomores and juniors moving up.”
