COLUMBIA, Mo. - The first day of the Class 1 state wrestling tournament had a little bit of everything for the Blair Oaks Falcons - some ups, some downs and one thing that was kind of a middle-of-the-road type of thing.
But the end result was the Falcons still have all five of their qualifiers alive following two first-round wins and a trio of victories in the first round of wrestlebacks.
"We reached our goal - everybody is still alive," Blair Oaks head coach Tim Karsten said. "We're wrestling well right now, which is the important thing."
Start with that middle-of-the-road item, as the Falcons' Frankie Falotico won his match at 132 pounds by forfeit. That's not so strange in later rounds, where the attrition of three days of hard matches starts to wear on the wrestlers. But before things even get started?
"It's strange that you don't take care of business when you're a state qualifier and you can't make weight the first day, but that's how it goes sometimes," Karsten said. "Frankie's opponent wasn't going to remember that match too well, anyway."
Blair Oaks' other first-round winner was Chance Cumpton at 285, as he beat Stephen Clark of New Madrid County Central 3-1.
A second-period escape gave Cumpton a 1-0 lead heading to the final period, where he gave up a tying escape just four seconds in. But he picked up the deciding points when he got a takedown with :39 left and held on for the win.
"I think Chance could have taken that guy down a couple more times, but when they're that big, you can make a mistake and it can cost you big," Karsten said. "So he followed his plan, and it worked."
The Falcons lost a heartbreaker in another opening-round match. Alex Gaydos was tied at 3 before giving up a takedown and two near-fall points in the final 16 seconds to lose 7-3 to Lathrop's Jacob Brock.
"Alex wrestled him really well," Karsten said.
Gaydos bounced back to beat Tristan Daniel of Maysville 6-4.
"I thought he was going to have an easy match in that one, but (Daniel) turned out to be faster than heck," Karsten said.
Also losing in the first round were London Gaydos at 126 pounds and Tanner Lueckenhoff at 182.
London Gaydos lost by fall to Adrian's Dakota Jones, a No. 1 seed and a two-time state medalist, before coming back to win by fall against Maplewood's Kar-Mel Brewer.
"We were in a tough district, so we didn't set ourselves up great with seeds," Karsten said. "But we came back and wrestled hard in wrestlebacks, which is important. Now we just have to keep going through the back side (of the bracket)."
Lueckenhoff opened with a 13-4 loss to Whitfield's Taylor Boyce, but came back to pin Plattsburg's Blake McClain. Lueckenhoff, Karsten and assistant coach Brian Markway were all smiles coming off the mat after that win.
"I was nervous about that match," Karsten said.
The Falcons resume action today at 9:30 a.m. with the quarterfinals and second round of wrestlebacks. The semifinals and third-round wrestlebacks will begin around 6 p.m. Blair Oaks is currently tied for 12th in the team race with 13 points, as Seneca leads with 31.
"Everybody came back really strong, and we stayed healthy, which was good, too," Karsten said.
III
Blair Oaks wasn't the only area team to get all of their competitors through to the second day, as the Versailles Tigers and Tipton Cardinals also did it - although in very different ways.
Versailles won six of its eight opening-round matches, then also won a pair of matches in wrestlebacks. Tipton, meanwhile, lost all three of its openers before coming back to go 3-for-3 in wrestlebacks.
Out of the six to win in the opening round for Versailles, four of them - Kooper Wilson (113), Adam Guinn (160), Willie Schotte (170) and Dylan Ballew (182) - won by fall. Konner Shewmaker (106) won 11-2 and Nathan Long (120) won by technical fall.
Dalton Schmidt (145) narrowly missed joining his teammates with a first-round win. He got a reversal with :05 left in regulation to tie it at 7, only to give up a takedown in overtime to fall 9-7.
But Schmidt did come back to get a pin in wrestlebacks.
Rex Sheeley (220) lost by fall in the opening round before coming back to win by fall in wrestlebacks.
The bonus-points wins helped put the Tigers in second place in the team race after the first day, as Versailles is at 28.5, just 2.5 points behind Seneca.
For Tipton, Robert Gutierrez (113) lost by technical fall before winning by technical fall, Ryan Bruce (195) lost 5-3 and won by fall, and Charles Walsh (220) lost by fall and won by fall.
Two Fatima Comets moved on to today's action with first-match wins, as Cody Huhn (132) won 8-0 and Caleb Schroeder (138) won 7-5. Clayton Haslag (106) lost by technical fall and lost 9-2 and was eliminated.
Tipton is in 27th place with 8.5 points, while Fatima is in a tie for 32nd with 5.
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