The Helias Crusaders were looking forward to a tough dual.
But a handful of forfeits took away any drama.
“The dual was really over before it even started,” Helias coach Weston Keleher said after the Crusaders opened Central Missouri Activities Conference action Tuesday night with a 50-24 victory against the Hickman Kewpies at Rackers Fieldhouse.
“We wrestled some of their better kids, but it wasn’t what we were expecting. Hickman really won the dual tonight, they won more matches with the kids they had.”
Helias won three of the eight matches contested on the mat.
Jordan Fincher picked up the first win for the Crusaders, winning by technical fall in 3:35 at 138 pounds. The freshman led 4-0 after one period before using three cradles to rack up nine bonus points to end the match in the second period.
Eli Homan, another freshman, won by fall in just :19 at 157 for the Crusaders.
“Eli doing Eli things,” Keleher said.
Logan Montoya picked up Helias’ final win on the mat, posting a 3-1 victory at 175. The junior led 2-0 after one period and 3-0 after two.
“Logan’s a stingy wrestler, he’s not going to give up a lot of points,” Keleher said.
Helias lost the first three contested matches by technical fall. But in a positive, two went the full six minutes.
At 106, Parker Lock lost to Andrew Wiesner of Hickman.
“Parker fought,” Keleher said. “He had some chances to score he couldn’t take advantage of, but he fought hard to the end.”
At 132, Justin Wieberg fell to Hayden Benter in full time. Benter is the defending Class 4 state champion at 132.
“Justin went out there to wrestle, he was trying to score points,” Keleher said. “He was in position a lot of times to score points, I was proud of the way he wrestled.”
Keleher said Wieberg’s aggressiveness comes from the Helias practice room.
“Justin wrestles with some of the more competitive guys in the room and he’s discovering he can score points and he’s getting better every day,” he said.
At 113, Evan Dunn of Helias lost by technical fall to Hank Benter, who won the state title at 106 last season.
In the other matches decided on the mat, Hunter Barnhart lost by a third-period fall at 215 and Bryce Allen fell 5-4 at 285 as regular starter Alex Cook was out due to illness.
“Bryce wrestled a one-point match, you can’t be too upset with that,” Keleher said.
Barnhart and Allen are both juniors.
“We look like we’re an older program if you look down the roster sheet, but we graduated a lot and a lot of those juniors are moving up from the JV and it’s going to take some time for us,” Keleher said. “I just have to be patient, it’s going to take time.”
Winning by forfeit for the Crusaders were Aleksandr Careaga at 120, Issac Schatzer at 126, Jace Duemmel at 144, Carson Hayes at 150, Drake Perkins at 165 and Cody Suthoff at 190.
While the forfeits bloated the final score, Keleher is confident the Crusaders would have won the dual if both teams had a full lineup.
“We have a team that would have beaten them without the forfeits, it was just one of those nights a lot of our good kids didn’t get a chance to wrestle,” he said.
Helias (7-1 overall, 1-0 CMAC) is back in action this weekend at the Harrisonville Tournament.