Yoder, Jones, Hein crowned champions, Mueller, Anderson runners-up
Sports writer
With the regular season coming to a close Saturday for the Hillsboro High School wrestling team, now comes the time to see if it can wrestle the best when it counts the most.
Hillsboro rolls into this weekend’s wrestling regional at Garden Plain fresh off a second-place finish Saturday at the Remington invitational.
Out of 13 schools competing, only 4A Clearwater was able to out-do Hillsboro.
Final team scores were unavailable at press time.
“As a whole, the team wrestled well on Thursday and Saturday,” said Trojan coach Scott O’Hare. “Although there were a few performances that were not what we hope to see at this time of the season, overall, our technique is looking pretty good and the guys are wrestling with more intensity.”
Matt Yoder (135-pounds), Tyler Jones (152), and John Hein (189) ran through the tournament to capture titles, while Nick Mueller (130) and Gabe Anderson (171) finished as runners-up.
Bret Mueller (112) and Aaron Bina (140) each finished third, and Robby McClelland (119) was fourth, rounding out Hillsboro’s top-finishers.
“Our physical conditioning seemed much better this week,” O’Hare said. “Most of the guys still looked fairly strong well into the third period of matches. That becomes so important at this time of the season because the difference between going to state, and having your season end may very well come down to a very hard-fought, six-minute match.
Remington’s two-time state-qualifier Jerry Bennett already has two victories against Yoder under his belt this year.
Yoder was able to takedown Bennett Saturday and score two back points with less than 10 seconds left to push the match to overtime.
In his first year of wrestling, the junior Yoder was able to pick up his second tournament title, putting Bennett on his back for the fall.
Jones literally ran over his competition, winning his first three matches by technical falls before picking up a pin in championship match.
Hein had a record-setting day, scoring two pins for 26 on the year, which eclipsed former standout Jake Yoder’s record for most pins in a season.
Nick Mueller exploded out of the gate Saturday, winning his first two matches with first-period pins.
While the third-ranked senior has been able to handle just about everybody he’s met on the mat, Central-Burden’s sixth-ranked Tyler McMichael has arguably been one of his toughest adversaries.
Mueller was able to beat McMichael at both Halstead and Eureka, but McMichael made it a 2-1 series the first weekend of January at Herington.
Saturday’s championship match knotted the series at two with McMichael prevailing.
O’Hare plans on taking a good look at the match again as the two could possibly meet Saturday at regionals.
“I feel pretty good about where we are right now,” O’Hare said. “Many of the guys are doing some of their best wrestling right now as far as technique and intensity.
“Hopefully this is an indication that we are peaking at the right time.”