By John Rittenhouse
A pair of Luverne High School seniors earned trips to St. Paul for the Minnesota State Class AA High School Wrestling Championships over the weekend.
Cardinals Joel Evans and Canaan Petersen earned berths in the state tournament by placing first and second respectively during the Section 3AA Individual Tournament staged in Windom Friday and Saturday.
Both Luverne-Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth wrestlers will begin state competition at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul tonight. The Class AA individual preliminaries begin at 6 p.m.
Evans will be making his second consecutive appearance at the state classic after winning the section championship at 215 pounds in Windom.
Petersen qualified for the state tournament for the first time by finishing second at 152 pounds at the section event.
Evans, who placed second at the section level before going 1-2 at the state tournament without placing as a junior, went 3-0 to capture the 215-pound title last weekend.
Evans, the No. 1 seed in his weight class, pinned Windom-Mountain Lake-Butterfield-Odin’s Derek Radtke in 1:34 during Friday’s quarterfinals before pinning Tracy-Milroy-Balaton’s Mike Schreier in Saturday’s semifinals.
The Cardinal completed his run by posting a 17-8 major decision win over Fulda-Murray County Central’s Nick Steinmetz in the finals.
Petersen reached the finals at 152 by posting 5-2 and 5-1 decision wins over Red Rock Central-Westbrook-Walnut Grove’s Nick Coulter and W-ML-B-O’s Ryan Fast in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds.
Petersen then dropped a 12-4 major decision to Worthington’s Jeff Campbell in the championship match, giving him second place in the weight class.
Evans will take a 21-4 record into the state tournament. Petersen is 23-10.
Seniors Dusty Seachris and Cody Jagow made bids to join Evans and Petersen at state before finishing third in their weight classes.
Seachris went 3-2 at 135 pounds before his 18-17 season came to an end with a 14-6 loss to Jackson County Central’s Jordan Burmeister in a true second-place match. Jagow, who went 3-1 at the tournament to end a 27-7 season, didn’t get the chance to wrestle a true second-place match.
L-H-BC-E seventh-grader Chris Ashby went 3-3 and placed sixth at 103 pounds to end a 4-3 campaign. Sophomore Ruston Aaker went 1-3 to finish sixth at 130 pounds, capping his 14-19 season.
Justin Mann went 1-2 without placing at 140, while Anthony Boyenga (119), Kerry Fink (125), Jesse Saravia (145) and Jeff Cronberg (189) all went 0-2.
