Elgin, Marlow claim State mat titles

OKLAHOMA CITY — Marlow and Elgin used their big guns in the upper weights to put the clinchers on team championships as the State Wrestling Tournament wrapped up Saturday at the State Fairgrounds Arena. Both the area powers swept the Dual State as well two weeks ago.

The Owls won the Class 5A team title with 95.5 points, beating out runner-up Chickasha with 80 points. MacArthur was a solid fifth in the team scoring and placed five wrestlers.

Marlow scored 175 points to beat Blackwell which had 160 points.

Elgin had a solid consolation bracket during the day but after two wrestlers were beaten in the finals, that left it to Ritson Meyer at 215 to get the Owls back on the move and he did just that with a 3-1 decision over MacArthur’s Trae Kibble.

And after that Jace Williams was able to take the title at 285 to pad the team title. Williams had to go to overtime to beat Deacon Peterson of Coweta, 2-1.

The Owls got silver medals from Hunter Jackson at 113 who lost a 3-1 sudden victory decision to Kaedin Herenden of Guthrie. The other silver medal went to Colyn Donnelly who lost an 8-0 major decision to Liam Daniels of Del City at 190.

The Owls had a third from Brice Martin at 120 and a fourth from George Tahdooahnippah at 175.

The toughness of the competition was evident as MacArthur’s Braden Brown was unable to earn a repeat title as Del City’s Deontre Buttram was able to pin the Mac standout at the 5:39 mark.

Kibble got the silver at 215 after losing to Meyer of Elgin and Mac’s Skylar Red Elk lost a 10-4 decision at 165 to Claremore’s Cooper Zickefoose. Mac also got a third from Christian Morales at 144 and Kaden Wallace got a third at 138, beating Ethan Peterson of Sapulpa, 3-1. Morales scored a fall over Ezra Gales of Grove in 1:47.

Marlow impressive

The Outlaws crowned five champions and placed four others to claim their second wrestling title of the season after winning Dual State two weeks ago.

The champions were Marcus Williams at 120, Brantz Bateman at 144, Zach Dawson at 150, Cade Gilbert at 157 and Lawson Knox at 175 all claimed titles for the Outlaws. Williams pinned Gage Jessen of Comanche in 42 seconds while Bateman took 1:21 to pin Grant Rowe of Blackwell.

Dawson earned an 8-3 decision over Grady Mittasch of Pawnee, Gilbert got a fall at the 5:58 mark of the match to beat Kolbe Novotny of Pawnee and Knox won by a 16-0 tech fall over Lawson Lusk of Blackwell.

The Outlaws also got silver medals from Tommy Miller at 113, Keller Kizarr at 132 and thirds from Brock Smith at 215 and Jaxson Murray at 126.

Cache’s Shafer wins gold

Cache made a rather strong showing in Class 4A with a big chunk of the Bulldogs coming from Charlie Shafer who claimed the title at 157 pounds with an impressive win.

Shafer beat Tecumseh’s JD Stigman, 8-2, to win three straight matches and bring home the gold.

Logan Crawford was in the title match at 132 but wound up being edged out, 11-6 by Miles Velasquez and settled for a silver medal.

Cache also got a bronze medal from Taii Walsh at 120 who beat Javon Freeman of Bristow, 7-4.