Owasso, Oklahoma, had several things in store for the Manhattan High wrestling team, very few that were pleasing. A seventh place finish is not always the best news to receive, but it didn’t put much of a damper on the team’s spirits.

“I’m always excited for the team,” head coach Robert Gonzales said. “They get to wrestle some of the best competition, such as some nationally ranked school and a few state championship schools from Oklahoma and Kansas. I feel like if we present the best competition available and if our administration supports us attending the event then I’m always excited.”

The team started out strong by beating Deer Creek 38-29 and then beating Bartelsville 51-28. Then they went into the final match of their pool, where they received their first loss from Perry 18-50 to end the first day. During the second day, the team proceeded to the quarter finals where they lost to the Mustangs 33-39, then went to the consolation semifinals where they lost to Sand Springs 20-39. This lead them to their final match against rivals Shawnee Heights where they won 37-30, giving them a seventh place finish.

“We weren’t to happy about placing seventh,” senior Jalin Harper said. “We had a lot of room for improvement and thought we could have done a lot better. Overall we felt pretty good since there is a lot of good competition. We wrestled some good matches and lost some matches where we were really close to winning.“

There was a total of 24 teams at the tournament, some of which are nationally ranked and several others that hold state titles, including Goddard who is the defending 5A state champion. A seventh place finish wasn’t the only surprise Owasso had in store for MHS.

“One of the things I think I could’ve done better was bring more wrestlers as we suffered three injuries two of which will see doctors on Monday,” Gonzales said. “I think these injures made us stronger, I think our athletes knew they had to fight. A good example of this was sophomore Adrian Kaus; he was overpowered in almost every match, but he did not get pinned, which meant he only gave the other team five points, instead of six. The team really rallied around him and was cheering him on the whole time.”

Junior Christian Schlepp suffered a shoulder sprain, freshman Josh Pence received a broken nose and junior Bubba Wilson strained his knee.

“Well I can’t say we wrestled bad. I think we did a lot of good things,” Harper said. “They were just tough teams and sometimes you run into matches like that and you take a loss. Thanks to that we have a lot of things to work on in order to get us ready for our state run.”

This tournament finished the dual season for MHS. They were able to finish with a dual record of 13-7. Their next competition is the Centennial League tourney on Saturday at Topeka West.