KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Park Hill had a better record in head-to-head matchups in the finals but couldn’t make up the ground on Liberty in the team race on Saturday, Feb. 15 in the Class 4 District 4 tournament at Staley High School.
The Trojans finished as runners-up with 187 ½ points, but the Blue Jays dominated the meet with 286 points to win the tournament. The results were the same last year with Liberty winning and the Trojans coming in second.
The rivalry now heads to Columbia for three days of wrestling, where both teams are considered favorites to bring home hardware again. Liberty was the state runner-up last year, while Park Hill took third place.
The Trojans have had a trophy each year since 2008.
CODY THORN/Citizen photo
Park Hill’s Ethen Miller, left, tries to take down Liberty’s Kage Lengner during a match on Saturday, Feb. 15 at the Class 4 District 4 tournament in Kansas City North.
“Liberty is really good and we will have to be close to perfect to compete,” Park Hill coach Jacob Beck said after getting the district runner-up plaque. “We will try to wrestle as hard as we can. We have a lot of success and it is nice we will be on the opposite side of the bracket so we won’t have to beat ourselves up with Liberty. They are great and we will have to wrestle well, but if we see them we are deep in the tournament and we would be excited about that. We have one more week of work.
“The team we need to catch right now is Liberty. They are the cream of the crop and it is fun to have something to shoot for.”
The Trojans won five of their seven finals, winning three of those against Liberty, while dropping two to the Blue Jays.
Cael Keck (106 pounds) secured the first title, beating Staley’s Logan Burks by a pin with 14 seconds left in the first period. He was a district runner-up last year before reaching to the bubble round of the state tournament.
He lost that match and didn’t medal in his first trip to state. That was a big eye-opener for the four-time youth state champion.
“I’m so much better than I was last year,” said Keck, who wrestled at 100 pounds last year. “I thought it wouldn’t be hard to make the jump from youth to high school but it was a pretty big jump. I trained a lot harder and took it a lot more serious. After not placing at state, I felt like ‘wow, it’s been a while.’”
Keck won all four of his matches by pins to improve to 39-4 on the season.
Liberty got its two head-to-head wins against Park Hill at 113 and 120 with Easton Hilton getting a 12-2 major decision against Ryker Smith and Jeremiah Reno pinning Kody Ketchum at 3:33. Reno, a Nebraska signee, improved to 40-0 overall.
Both of the Liberty wrestlers are reigning state champions.
“We are 0-2 vs. Hilton and 0-3 vs. Reno so we got some work to do to close the gap,” Beck said.
Trey Crawford started a streak of four champions in a row for the Trojans.
The senior who signed to wrestle at Missouri got a 3-1 decision over Liberty’s Kyle Dutton in a battle of state medalists. Crawford, who took third last year at 132 pounds, evened the season record at 1-1 against the sophomore that took fourth at 126 last year.
Dutton won 3-2 against Crawford at the Winnetonka meet earlier this season.
The district title is the second straight for Crawford, who was a runner-up as a freshman and missed the tournament as a sophomore after suffering a concussion.
He heads to state in a quest for a third state medal and his first championships.
“I will take in the last few matches as a Trojan,” said Crawford, who won three of his four matches at districts by pin. “I gotta get to business in the first round. Then the key is the next one and just keep rolling.”
The Miller brothers, Ethen and Kal, followed with titles for the Trojans.
Ethen Miller got a 4-2 sudden victory in overtime over Liberty’s Kage Lenger after a reversal to improve to 14-1 on the season. The junior is a returning state runner-up for Park Hill at 126 last year.
Kal Miller, a sophomore, won at 145 with a 5-1 decision over Logan Rathjen.
Kal Miller had two pins and a major decision, while Ethen Miller had two pins and a technical fall.
The final title came from junior Grayston DiBlasi, who got a 9-5 decision over state runner-up David Brooks of Staley in a hard fought match.
DiBlasi (33-6) defeated a returning state qualifier in DeAndre Thomas of Blue Springs, 7-1, to reach the finals. His first two matches were pins in the first period.
The final state qualifier is Chris Bizzle, who took fourth at 195.
The junior lost 9-2 to Lee’s Summit North’s Aaron Barnhill in his final match but is a first-time state qualifier for the Trojans.
“It is great to see him have the success and all the boys love seeing his success,” Beck said of Bizzle. “Anyone that works hard is happy for him and it is awesome to see. He’s a football player and showing you can have success in our room if you work hard. We are really happy for him and we are expecting him to score points in the state tournament and win matches.”
Bizzle (20-17) got a takedown and near fall for a win in overtime against Blue Springs South’s Cooper Broyles to reach the semifinals. In that match, he lost to nationally-ranked Rocky Elam of Staley by a pin.
Bizzle won 6-1 against Fort Osage’s Jake Jones to secure his spot at the state meet.
“I was out sweating more for his match there than any of my own,” Crawford said