Spoofhounds regain intensity post-break

By Phil Cobb | January 7, 2017 |

HENRY JANSSEN/DAILY FORUM
MV at Mid-Buch

FAUCETT — The Maryville wrestling team competed for the third time since the holiday break on Saturday, traveling south to Faucett for the Mid-Buchanan Invitational. Mid-Buch was an individual tournament, and the Spoofhounds traveled seven wrestlers.

Three of seven Spoofhounds finished in the top three in their respective weight classes. Though no Maryville wrestlers finished atop the podium, Jackson Sanders finished second at 160 pounds, and Matt Twaddle at 170 and Mark Zahnd at 182 both finished third.

After a lackluster past two meets, head coach Connor Kellerstrass thought his team picked up the intensity and finally shook the mid-season rust.

“Both of the two duals we wrestled this past week, we were sluggish,” the two-sport coach said. “The boys picked it up and wrestled pretty well today, there were some different schools like Centralia and Higginsville that we don’t get to see very often. This past Thursday, we saw some of our conference opponents like Savannah. As we go down the stretch, the competition will only get tougher. It’ll be a tough couple of weeks.”

“It was nice to see us collectively wrestle well as a team.”

Kellerstrass thought that Sanders was especially impressive throughout the day. He won four consecutive matches, all coincidentally 15-6, before falling to Mid-Buchanan’s Parker Rotterman in the finals.

Kellerstrass believes that to be a major step for Sanders in the mid-season.

“Him making the championship match was a big step for him, obviously we wanted that outcome to be a little different. He wrestled pretty well on the day, so that’s exciting.”

Aside from the three Hounds who made deep pushes into bracket play, Garrett Pistole finished 5^th at 3-2 in the 138 pound class, Tierry Wilmes 9^th at 2-3, Jarrett Partridge 6^th at 2-3, and Jacob Search 6^th at 2-3.

Search said that he was proud of his team on Saturday, but that they will have to amplify the focus for the remainder of the year.

“It was a good day for us,” Search said. “There was some good competition there, but I feel we competed today, but we’ll see better competition later on. We’re growing as a team, especially some of our younger guys. Twaddle’s always a consistent performer, Mark Zahnd came in as a first-year wrestler and got third, he’s coming into his own. Sanders is consistent like [Twaddle]. We’re always trying to get better going into Districts and Conference later on this month, building on what we saw today.”

Maryville will wrestle again next weekend in Plattsburg’s tournament.