The RBHS wrestling team kicked off their season last night in an annual tri-dual against Kirksville and rival HIckman.
In the Bruin’s first dual against Kirksville, senior Graham Ratermann opened the night with a first period fall at 182 pounds to give the Bruins a six point lead. At 195 pounds freshman Don Hammers was thrust into the varsity lineup, although Hammers is a first year wrestler he wrestled tough, scoring the first takedown of the match before eventually being pinned. At the two upper weights, Kirksville state champion Makenna Cook received a forfeit victory at 220 pounds and RBHS senior Joe Boetcher won by forfeit at heavyweight, knotting the score at 12.
Bumping back down to the lighter weights, junior John Flanegin, sophomore Brock Davis, junior Josiah Kline and sophomore Henry Cleavinger all received forfeit victories giving the Bruins a 36-12 lead. Kirksville recorded pins at 132 and 138 and a forfeit victory at 145 narrowing the distance between the two teams, 36-30. At 152 pounds sophomore Ernest Dorema pinned his opponent with a front headlock cradle in 32 seconds giving the Bruins a 42-30 point lead and their last points of the dual. Kirksville added a forfeit victory at 160 and a pin at 170 to knot the team scores at 42-42.
“As a whole we did okay for this being our first dual and since there’s a lot of newer guys on the team,” Kline said. “But we can definitely improve. We can work on a lot of different things as a team since this sport is an individual sport.”
Kline said that each wrestler has different things that they each need to work on individually, with the newer wrestlers needing to work on learning how to avoid being pinned and the more experienced wrestlers learning to get as many bonus points as possible. Davis said that the team was very supportive of each other when the matches started.
“As a team, we really supported each other when a call or even a match didn’t go the way the person wrestling wanted it to,” Davis said. “There are things that we were doing that were good, but they could be better if we just stick to the basics that our coach is teaching us, so just trying to stay basic in our technique would probably be the best option in improving our technique and the all around way we wrestle.”
In the dual against Hickman, Hammers opened for the Bruin’s with a forfeit victory. At 220 pounds the Kewpies won by pin but at heavyweight Boetcher tossed his opponent with a head and arm throw resulting in a 30 second pin giving the Bruins a 12-6 lead.
At 106 and 113 Flanegin and Davis again received forfeits advancing the lead to 24-6. At 120 pounds Cleavinger recorded a pin with just six seconds left in the match to give RBHS a 30-6 lead. At 132 pounds sophomore Bo Blomenkamp recorded a hard fought 6-2 decision and at 138 pounds the Kewpies won by technical fall. At 152 pounds Dorema recorded a forfeit and at 160 Hickman scored a forfeit victory. At 170 pounds Hickman won again by pin. To finish the evening Ratermann recorded another pin at 182 to seal the Bruins 51-29 victory.
“It’s hard to tell what we are best at right now since it’s so early in the season,” Kline said, “but no one seemed to be giving up no matter what the score was, so that was good. I’m just excited to wrestle mainly, but I do like hanging out with my teammates as well. For this season I just want to do my best and give God all the glory as much as I can and hope for another state title this year.”