Cougars advance five to districts

JEWELL – AGWSR senior Trey Lashbrook won the 126-pound title at a sectional wrestling tournament at South Hamilton High School on Saturday, Feb. 6 spearheading a group of five Cougars advancing to this coming Saturday’s district tournament in Clarksville.

The rest of the Cougars’ district qualifiers advanced as runners-up: Kaden Abbas at 120, Zach Johnson at 138, Jayden Bowles at 145, Ben Puente at 160.

Lashbrook allowed one point to his opponents in his two wins on Saturday, earning a 16-1 tech fall over Rockford’s Josiah Stokes and a 10-0 major decision against Nashua-Plainfield’s Kaden Wilken in the final.

“We don’t have a lot of matches under our belt,” AGWSR head coach Chad Gerbracht said of Lashbrook. “We’re still fine-tuning some things the way we want to do it, but he’s making adjustments out there, going to where he’s good on his feet, saw some really good shots and finishes there.”

Lashbrook wrestles South Winn’s Ethan Maldonado in the opening round on Saturday. Undefeated Clayton McDonough of Central Springs likely awaits on the other side of the bracket. McDonough is a two-time placewinner at state.

Abbas lost to North Butler-Clarksville’s Tanner Arjes in the 120-pound final on Saturday by an 18-2 tech fall, but advanced by rule after pinning third-place finisher Hayden Munn of Nashua-Plainfield in the semifinals.

“The finals match, that’s not where we want to be,” Gerbracht said. “We want to clean that up, shore up some points, get some points on the board of our own. We were in a couple positions where we just had to attack, keep him caught on that hip, we just kinda let him recover.”

Abbas gets Northwood-Kensett’s Treycen Rollene in the opening round on Saturday. Abbas pinned Rollene at the Cougar Invite earlier this season.

“He had a good day, and as a freshman and district qualifier, that’s outstanding,” Gerbracht said. “He’s been doing this for a long time, too and now he’s seeing the rewards of that, but district qualifier isn’t what we’re working for.”

Zach Johnson dropped a 10-8 decision to Nashua-Plainfield’s Aiden Sullivan in the 138 final but bounced back with a second-period pin in the wrestleback with South Hamilton’s Carter Stolee.

“Zach had a kid that was in the tie-up, heavy on the head, slowed us down from getting our offense going,” Gerbracht said. “That affected the end result – shouldn’t have been a close match at all, so that’s something we’ll address this week with staying out of ties, passing and getting good setups.”

Jayden Bowles and Ben Puente both benefited from semifinal wins, not needing a wrestleback after falling to their finals opponents. Coltan Richtsmeier, Bo Gerbracht and Jacob Haley all finished third.

“Everything kind of ended up where it was supposed to, according to seeds,” Gerbracht said. “We’ll see where we end up next week – things get a lot tougher, … so we’ve got to clean some things up, watch some video. And we want our third-place finishers tonight to be ready in case COVID drops in, because if there’s a year for that to happen it’s this year. Hope not, but got to stand ready.”

Class 1A Sectional 8

Team Scoring

Team scores: 1. Nashua-Plainfield 215; 2. South Hamilton 167; 3. AGWSR 166.5; 4. North Butler-Clarksville 153.5; 5. Belmond-Klemme 121.5; 6. West Fork 78; 7. Tripoli 71; 8. Rockford 42.

AGWSR results

(Top 2 advance to districts)

106: Jaedrek Bowles, 4th place.

113: Coltan Richtsmeier, 3rd place.

120: Kaden Abbas, 2nd place.

126: Trey Lashbrook, 1st place.

132: Bo Gerbracht, 3rd place.

138: Zach Johnson, 2nd place.

145: Jayden Bowles, 2nd place.

160: Ben Puente, 2nd place.

170: Jacob Haley, 3rd place.

195: Aiden Heitland, 6th place.

220: Jared Granzow, 6th place.

285: Tate Miller, 6th place.