It took a trip through the alphabet to decide a winner.
Eli Teiberis of Jefferson City defeated Justin Weiberg of Helias by decision in their 126-pound match to wrap up the third-place dual Saturday afternoon in the Missouri Duals at Rackers Fieldhouse.
That made the score Jefferson City 34, Helias 34. There are no ties in wrestling.
It took a trip to the rule book to find the criteria for breaking the tie. It wasn’t decided by criteria A or B or C. It went all the way to I, which is which team scored the most points first in its matches. Helias had 16, Jefferson City 12.
“We had to wrestle well to get to the tie,” Jefferson City coach Phil Cagle said. “They just happened to get the win.”
Teiberis scored a reversal in the first period to tie his match at 2. After a scoreless second period, he got a takedown early in the third period to earn a 4-2 victory.
“He could have given up after giving up that early takedown, but he didn’t,” Cagle said.
That was a lesson Cagle believes some of his wrestlers are still learning.
“This is a fight,” he said. “This isn’t playing with a ball, it’s not running down the field or the court. It’s a fight and some of our kids need to learn that it’s a fight.”
Jefferson City finished 5-1 in duals to take second in the Gold Division to earn a berth in the third-place dual. Deciding the division title came down to the final round of pool duals, with Neosho taking the title with a 42-36 win against Jefferson City.
“We wrestled really well against Neosho,” Cagle said.
Three Jays finished 7-0 in the two-day tournament.
Joe Kuster at 145 and Will Berendzen at 182 both won six of their seven matches by fall. Michael Friederich at 195 got three of his seven wins by fall.
Braden Werdehausen at 132, Cameron McKee at 138 and Niko Rich at 220 were all 5-2 for Jefferson City. Four of Rich’s wins were by fall. Isaac Enloe of the Jays was 3-1 with three wins by fall at 285.
“Our kids did a good job,” Cagle said. “I’m real proud of our kids.
“Our kids will get better from this because this is a good, tough tournament.”
The Jays appear to be finding their stride after a bit of a slow start to the season.
“We’re starting to catch up,” Cagle said. “Everybody we had wrestled had a lot more duals than we had. We start the season a little slow, but after Christmas, we will be wrestling a lot.”
Jefferson City is off until next weekend, when the Jays will travel to the Claremore, Okla., Tournament. The Jays will wrestle nine matches in two days in that event.
“That’s a big tournament,” Cagle said. “The kids better be ready to work on getting in shape this week.”
This week will be another step in getting better for the postseason.
“We have to keep working and improving, we’re a long way from February,” Cagle said.