Greene County finished second to Manson-Northwest Webster at the Tiger-Knight Invitational wrestling tournament on Saturday at Carroll High School. Coach Mark Sawhill took just nine wrestlers, but four won titles and another was second. The Rams also had a third place finish, two fourths and one fifth. M-NW had 178 points to 154 for the Rams and 151 from Pocahontas Area. Guthrie Center was fourth at 127.5 with Carroll High at 103, Kuemper Catholic (Carroll) 100, Des Moines Roosevelt 84, Exira/Elk Horn-Kimballton 70, and Denison-Schleswig 65. Greene County had the most individual champions, but all nine teams had at least one individual weight class winner.
Senior Jake Challen (120), freshman Logan Scheuermann (126), junior Jordan Challen (132), and sophomore Tommy Bradshaw (138) each placed first and senior Rene’ Guzman at 285 was second. Senior Jeremy Scheuermann (152) dropped a 6-5 match in the semifinals for his first loss of the season, but he won four of five matches on the day and was third. Ninth grader Hunter Ruth (170) and senior Tray Binkley (182) both were fourth while freshman Isaiah Yoder (160) was fifth. The younger Scheuermann was wrestling on the varsity for the first time on Saturday and he came away with a pair of falls en route to the title. Class 2A fifth ranked Dylan Forkner is the regular entry at 126, but he missed the tournament due to injury. Forkner is expected to return to the lineup in January.
Among the feature matches of the finals was a showdown between eighth ranked Jordan Challen and Kuemper senior Alexander Schmitz, who was ranked until this week. Both wrestlers have double-digit wins and had just lost once prior to Saturday. Both Challen and Schmitz were state tournament qualifiers last year. In a match that went to the last second, Challen won a close a 5-4 victory. The two could meet again in the postseason as both the Rams and Knights are both assigned to the Class 2A Sectional in Perry and the Atlantic District.
Greene County was 17-8 at the Tiger-Knight and the Rams go on break until after Christmas. They have nothing on the schedule until Jan. 9, but from that point until the Feb. 8 sectional tournament, Coach Sawhill’s team will be extremely busy.