The Manhattan High wrestling team had another successful weekend in Grand Island, Nebraska traveling on Thursday, having a day of bonding with practice that ended on Saturday. As a team, they went 6-2 and had two undefeated wrestlers, seniors Bubba Wilson and Quincy Sadler.

“Our team got closer this weekend because we stayed in a hotel for two nights, we all watched a big dual on TV together, Penn state vs. Arizona state,” Wilson said. “We had tons of fun and competed very well as a team.”

They went up against Norfork High for the first round on Friday and won 60-15. Most of the boys ended their match by pinning their opponents. Their second round they competed against Grand Island’s Junior Varsity team and beat them 63-9. Both teams had an open weight class (182) and GISH had an open weight class (113), giving freshman Easton Taylor another win on his record.

“When we were losing we battled back and wrestled our matches and let our matches have the outcome of the whole dual,” Taylor said.

On Friday, they defeated Northwest High 48-30 for round one and went up against Smith Center, defeating them 64-15. After those wins, the team was seated fifth out of 16 in the gold bracket.

“I had confidence in my training and I go into every match no matter who I wrestle expecting to win,” Wilson said.

For the first round, they competed against Great Bend, beating them 33-30. They went on and wrestled against Columbus where they took another win 45-30 in the quarterfinals. The team’s winning streak came to a close after wrestling against Grand Island and losing 32-35 for the semi-finals. They lost to Millard South 31-39 to secure their fourth place spot.

“We have enough room to improve but still [we’re] happy with what we got,” Taylor said.

Wrestling won’t have any matches over break until  Jan. 5