Lightning drop tight dual to ranked Wildcats

By Ryan Bergeron, Advocate Managing Editor

The Lightning Wrestling team was down some regular starters going into its home dual versus the ninth-ranked New London- Spicer Wildcats. Before the dual, the team had a meeting where it talked about having some guys in the lineup who had never wrestled on varsity before. Despite that, the team expected these individuals to not crumble, but instead go out there and battle hard. “They did (battle). Some kids got beat, but everybody tried 100%,” Lightning head coach Ben Youngs said, “so that’s what we asked of them, even though we didn’t come out on top.” In a dual decided in the final match, the Lightning came up just short in a 39-32 home loss in Annandale on Thursday, Jan. 16. In this dual, one of their non-regular varsity wrestlers– backup 215-pounder Ezra Manuel had an opportunity to clinch the dual victory in the final match versus the Wildcats’ Payton Meis. At the time, the Lightning trailed 33-32. In his match, Manuel took a 3-0 lead with just over a minute in the first period on a takedown after Meis attempted a throw. Manuel led 3-1 after one period. Twenty-seconds into the second period, Meis tied the match at 3-3 on a reversal, but Manuel scored an escape 11 seconds later to reclaim the lead at 4-3. Then Manuel took Meis to his back, but didn’t score any points, as Meis rolled through and took Manuel to his back, earning the pin with 14 seconds left in the period and securing the dual loss for the Lightning. In the dual, the Lightning won six of the 13 matches, including three by pin and two by technical fall. The team’s first pin and win of the dual came at 121 courtesy of Cassen Brumm, who earned his fiftieth career pin with 19 seconds left in the second period. “He’s really coming around. He’s building. His goal is to be a state placer this year,” Coach Youngs said. “So right now, we’re focused more on that, but it (fiftieth career pin) is… quite an accomplishment.” Nick Olson (160) and Nathan Klatt (215) also earned pins for the Lightning– Klatt’s cutting the team’s deficit to one and setting the stage for that final match. Brayden Fobbe (127) and Ayden Fitzgerald (133) earned the two technical falls for the Lightning. Carter Courtright (189) earned the team’s other victory, scoring a takedown with 12 seconds left to turn an 8-1 decision into an 11-1 major decision, earning his team an extra point. Of the seven losses, the Lightning would lose four matches by pin and three by technical fall.

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