By John Rittenhouse
The Luverne-Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth wrestling team spent Saturday competing in the Montevideo tournament.
L-H-BC-E filled eight weight classes for varsity competition at the event, and the Cardinals compiled 78 points to place seventh in a nine-team field.
L-H-BC-E topped MACCRAY (67 points) and Dawson-Boyd (51) in the team standings.
Pine Island won the team championship with 187.5 points. Windom-Mountain Lake-Butterfield-Odin was second with 180 points and was followed by Canby (178.5), Willmar (120), West Central Area (106) and Montevideo (93).
A pair of Luverne High School seniors placed second individually to highlight the team’s appearance at the event.
Joel Evans and Cody Jagow went 2-1 to place second at 215 and heavyweight respectively.
Evans earned a berth in the championship match by pinning Willmar’s Chad Emery in 56 seconds before sticking WCA’s Tom Lohse in 4:41.
Canby’s Dan Full denied Evans a title by pinning the Cardinal at 3:02 in the championship match.
Jagow opened the tournament with a 6-3 decision win over WCA’s Morgan Taylor before earning a berth in the finals by pinning Willmar’s Ryan Rieckman (no time available).
PI’s Bryan Breidall took the title at 275 by pinning Jagow in 1:41.
Cardinal Canaan Petersen placed third at 152 pounds with a 3-1 record.
Petersen pinned Montevideo’s Will Fultz in 3:58 before being pinned in overtime by PI’s Dana Schroeder.
Petersen bounced back to notch a 10-1 major decision win over MACCRAY’s Rob Grussing before pinning Willmar’s Lance Hauser in 3:40 during the third-place match.
Ruston Aaker placed fourth at 135 with a 1-2 record, Dusty Seachris was fifth at 140 with a 2-2 mark and Aric Uithoven was sixth at 130 with a 0-3 record.
Anthony Boyenga and Justin Mann went 0-2 at 125 and 145 without placing.
L-H-BC-E wrestles in Worthington Jan. 9.