The Spartans will spend Friday traveling to 521 miles south to Missouri for the Harrisonville Christmas Tournament. Last year, the Spartans finished third behind champions Kirksville and Deer Creek. The tournament features some of the top teams in Missouri and in the few years Sparta has wrestled at the tournament, they’ve been competitive every year with those top teams.
There will be 35 teams competing in Harrisonville including 11 JV teams. Teams competing include Adrian, Cameron, Cameron’s JV, Carl Junction, Clinton, Deer Creek, Deer Creek’s JV, Harrisonville, Harrisonville’s JV, KC Center, Kirksville, Kirksville’s JV, Marshall, McCluer South Berkely, Mexico, Mexico’s JV, Nevada, Odessa, Odessa’s JV, Osage, Pleasant Hill, Raymore Peculiar, Raymore Peculiar’s JV, Richmond, Ruskin, Seneca, Smithville, Smithville’s JV, Sparta, Sparta’s JV, St. Charles West, St. Charles West’s JV, St. Joseph Benton, Webb City and Webb City’s JV.
Here are a few ranked wrestlers based on the one set of rankings available. This was only one class so there are certainly more wrestlers from some of the larger schools that are ranked.
- 106 — Miles Robinson 6th (Raymore Peculiar),
- 132 — Mac Diaz 7th (Raymore Peculiar),
- 145 — Dustin McElroy 7th (Raymore Peculiar),
- 195 — Carter Mackender 2nd (Raymore Peculiar),
In a tournament earlier this year, Kirksville finished second to Pleasant Valley out of Iowa. Pleasant Valley is ranked 10th in Iowa Class 3A. In another tournament last weekend at Carl Junction, Seneca finished second, Carl Junction 5th and Webb Cit 7th. In further tournament action at Westminister, Odessa finished 5th and St. Charles West 7th. Harrisonville was competitive at the Bolivar Invitational back on December 1st. They finished second along with St. Joseph Benton who finished 5th and Osage in 8th.
Without any substantial team rankings from any Missouri media, the tournament results above suggest Harrisonville and Kirksville will be among the more competitive teams. We will have updates throughout the day when the tournament begins at 4pm.
Go Spartans!!