The Platte County boys’ and girls’ wrestling teams trailed early against Smithville and fought back with the Lady Pirates coming out with a 42-36 win and the Pirates coming up just short and losing 38-33 on Jan. 12.
For the boys, Caden Hulett started the dual off with a pin in the 106-weight class, but Smithville responded with four consecutive pins to take a 23-6 lead. Eli Rocha scored three points for Platte County with a 5-4 decision over Smithville’s Ethan Muir in the 138-weight class.
The Warriors answered with three straight match wins over the Pirates to take a 35-9 lead. The Pirates received six points for a forfeit in the 170-weight class and Platte County began the comeback.
“We are pretty top heavy, so we were expecting to get going on the top and we did,” Platte County head coach Reggie Burress said. “We made it a good dual, and we needed one of the top-2 matches to go our way, but we didn’t get that.”
Platte County’s Ben McDaniel, above, wrestles with Smithville’s Riley Brown on Jan. 12.
In the 182-weight class, Blaine Kuhn pinned Smithville’s Will Sapp (fall at :33), followed by a Jaydon Walls pin in the 195-weight class in 1:03. Jake Fernandez was awarded six points for a Smithville forfeit in the 220-weight class, and the dual came down to one final match.
With Smithville leading 35-33, Platte County’s Mar’quese Brown battled with Mason Crim in the 285-weight class. Crim ended up getting the winning takedown with about 24 seconds left and took a 3-2 decision to give Smithville the 38-33 conference win.
“Mar’quese wrestled well, he just didn’t quite get it. We will get back to working hard and see what we can do next week,” Burress said.
In the girls’ dual, Smithville won the first five matches – two of which were forfeits – and Platte County trailed 30-0. Elizabeth Humburg got the Pirates on the board when the 125-pound wrestler pinned Smithville’s Noellie Parrott in 5:12. After the Warriors’ Emily Knight pinned Platte County’s Sarah Humburg in the 130-weight class, four of the next six matches were Smithville forfeits to give Platte County the dual win.
“The girls are fighters. They’re always going to give 100 percent and I am proud of them for getting the win and taking care of that dual,” Burress said.
The final two non-forfeited matches were Pirate pins, starting with Tori Geddes defeating Smithville’s Skylar Ross (fall 1:38) in the 141-weight class. In the 149-weight class, Caitlyn Roudebush pinned Smithville’s Brooke Bowlin in 1:50.