5:14 pm — Things are starting to take shape in Harrisonville for the Spartans. A lot of wrestling has gone on in the past few hours. Dylan Winchel advanced to the consolation finals with a 9-5 victory while Tristan Zurfluh lost in the consolation semifinals by a score of 5-0.
At 119, Bryce Nowaczyk won his consolation semifinal by pin in 2:24 while Derek VonRuden lost his first match of the tournament in the semfinals and is guaranteed at least 4th place. At 130 pounds, Derek VonRuden also lost in the seminfals after being caught right off the bat and stuck in 16 seconds.
At 135 pounds, Paul VanTassel dropped his consolation semifinal match 7-3 while at 140, Michael Murnane fell in the semifinals 9-1. A weight class higher at 145 pounds, Toby Mosley was shutout against 17-0 Michael Rodgers of St. Clair. At 152 pounds, Morgan Leis fell to another undefeated wrestler by a score of 11-3. At 160 pounds, Alex Hemmersbach’s day is done after he won his 11th place bout by forfeit.
At 171 pounds, Xavier Lopez rebounded from three consecutive losses to win his consolation semifinal 8-5. One weight class higher, Clinton Labeause finished his day taking 15th place with a victory by forfeit. At 215 pounds, Tom Tourdot lost his first match of the tournament dropping a 7-2 decision to the 17-0 Haylon Jacobs of Mexico. Finally, at 285 pounds, Chris Beeler won his consolation quarterfinal by pin in 1:28.
Teamwise, the Spartans are sitting in 2nd place with 715 points, 106 points back of Deer Creek who now have 821 points. In third place and only 16 points back of the Spartans is St. Charles West and in 4th place, 54 points back of the Spartans, is Kirksville. Sparta has a great chance to improve upon last year’s third place showing and they might do it without an individual champion.
This will be the last update before the final update covering how each wrestler did. Check back here in a few hours to get each wrestler’s record on the weekend, Sparta’s team score and how each Spartan did in every single match of the tournament.
3:00 pm — Through six rounds, the Spartans continue to put up impressive numbers on a team and individual basis. On the team side of things, Sparta sits in second place with 634 points while Deer Creek continues to lead the tournament with 699 points. In third place, 10 points back of the Spartans, is St. Charles West.
Individually, the Spartans continue to see success. In the quarterfinals, Dylan Winchel and Tristan Zurfluh were pinned in the first period of their matches. At 119, Bryce Nowaczyk won his consolation quarterfinal by decision.
Derek VonRuden continued his undefeated tournament ways by improving to 4-0 over two days with a major decision victory while Nick Winchel did the same with a victory by decision in his quarterfinal match. At 135 pounds, Paul VanTassel dropped a match by decision and at 152 pounds, Morgan Leis defeated Dakota Bush of St. Clair, who came into his match against Leis with a record of 16-0.
At 160 pounds in the consolation quarterfinal, Alex Hemmersbach picked up a 7-1 victory while his practice partner, Xavier Lopez fell in the second period by pin to fall to 3-3 over two days. At 189 pounds, Clinton LaBeause lost his consolation quarterfinal match by decision and at 285, Chris Beeler fell to his opponent by pin in the third period.
Tom Tourdot has yet to wrestle this round.
12:31 pm — Through five rounds, the Spartans are hanging around the top team-wise with 562 points. Deer Creek leads all teams with 589 points. Just behind the Spartans is St. Charles West with 548 points.
On the individual side, Paul VanTassel picked up his first loss of the tournament and the season losing by pin in 5:21. Michael Murnane suffered the same fate dropping a 9-3 decision in the 5th round. Toby Mosley rebounded from his loss to win by pin in 5:54 while Alex Hemmersbach finally came out on the positive side of an overtime match winning 7-5 in overtime.
Xavier Lopez dropped his second match of the day by pin in 1:53 while Clinton LeBeause was also pinned in his latest match. Tom Tourdot squeaked out a 3-2 win over a previously undefeated Colby Bowers of Richmond and finally at 285, Chris Beeler dropped his second match of the year after getting pinned in the second period.
After five rounds, only Nick Winchel, Tom Tourdot and Derek VonRuden have yet to suffer a loss.
11:12 am — A note about those team scores. They really mean nothing at this point. As long as Sparta sticks around near the top, they’ll be fine. Shortly after posting at 10:55, the Spartans went up about 45 points in the team standings and now they sit in 4th place with 229 points. Ahead of the Spartans by 41 points and in first place is Deer Creek followed by Seneca with 240 points and St. Charles West with 239.5 points.
In the short time since the last post, the Spartans have seen Tristan Zurfluh take his first loss of the tournament, Nick Winchel win by injury default and Morgan Leis lose a close 3-2 decision to a wrestler with a 21-1 record and was a state runner-up last season in Missouri.
10:55 am — A few more Spartans have seen some action on the mat this morning. Bryce Nowaczyk dropped a 9-5 decision in his fourth match of the tournament while Toby Mosley picked up his first loss of the year losing 9-2 this morning. Alex Hemmersbach also fell by pin in the first period while practice partner Xavier Lopez was shut out 4-0 in his third match of the tournament.
On a positive note, Tom Tourdot picked up his third first period pin of the tournament to improve to 3-0 overall excluding byes. Tom’s brother Matt, had six first period pins at last year’s tournament.
Paul VanTassel stuck his second opponent of the tournament while Michael Murnane improved to 4-0 at Harrisonville with another first period pin. At 189, Clinton LaBeause earned his first win of the tournament by pin.
Despite the mixed results so far today, the Spartans have moved up to 2nd place overall. Deer Creek leads the tournament with 200 points followed by the Spartans with 190 points. Way back in third place is Seneca with 166 points and St. Charles West sits in fourth place with 165.5.
9:48 am — Dylan Winchel and Tristan Zurfluh both picked up pins for the Spartans this morning. Morgan Leis also picked up a victory by decision.
One note about Nick Winchel’s victory last night over the previously undefeated Antoine Jones. Jones placed sixth in the Missouri state tournament last year. At 125 pounds, Derek VonRuden’s defeated Carl Junction’s Nick Koon who won two matches at the Missouri state tournament. In other words, the Spartans are wrestling well thus far against some tough competition.
9:37 am — The Spartans are back on the mat this morning in what should be an action-packed day at the Harrisonville Christmas Invitational. So far this morning, Dylan Winchel picked up a forfeit victory. It’s the first of what will surely be many more matches today, but keep checking back for more updates.
The Spartans have slipped to 4th in the team standings this morning, but I think that is more a product of the Spartans not wrestling much today yet. Seneca leads all teams with 144.5 points followed by St. Charles West with 141.5, Deer Creek with 138 and then the Spartans with 129 points.
