GROVE – Grove senior Benny Steffenson made short work of all three of his matches Friday at the Will Rogers Conference wrestling tournament.
Steffenson got pins in all three of his matches to claim the conference title at 182 pounds, finishing off Blackwell’s Jacob Lamb in the second period of the title match to lead the Ridgerunners to a fifth place finish in the team standings.
“It felt pretty good, especially since I didn’t get to wrestle on Senior Night,” Steffenson said. “I like being at home. I enjoyed it.”
Steffenson, who received a forfeit in Tuesday’s home finale against Jay, pinned teammate Dylan Johnson in the second period in the quarterfinals then took just 35 seconds to take care of Cole Martin of Oologah in the semifinals.
“He wasn’t bad,” Grove head coach John Henry Ward said. “He was expected to win. I don’t think there was anybody here that could really challenge him.”
Steffenson was one of 10 medalists for Grove, which also had four fourths, two fifths and three sixth place finishes in scoring 120 team points.
“The kids wrestled alright, we didn’t really have our best day but it was pretty decent,” Ward said. “With everything that’s going on, it was about the best that could be expected. We’re moving forward.”
Finishing fourth for the Ridgerunners were Triston Decatur (126 pounds), Josh Perez (138 pounds), Anthony Krause (170 pounds) and Bill Nixon (195 pounds)
Perez came the closest among the four in his third place match, going into double overtime before losing to Colton Sparks of Newkirk.
“We had some guys pick it up and it’s good to see some of them place who haven’t placed a whole lot of times,” Ward said. “I was proud of all of them. They’re working hard.”
Getting fifth place finishes for Grove were Pedro Lara at 106 pounds and Wesley Swingle, who squeaked out a 4-2 decision over Zach Shambles of Vinita at 160 pounds in his final match of the tournament. Johnson also finished fifth at 182 pounds. Colby Layman (220), Drew Hardy (152), Hayden Wilkison (145) all finished sixth.
The tournament was originally scheduled to be a two-day affair, but illness kept some teams from coming and nearly every team that was at the tournament was missing some of its wrestlers. Twelve teams participated in Friday’s tournament, but the average weight class had eight or nine wrestlers.
One team that was at full strength was the Newkirk Tigers. Ranked fifth in the state by okwrestle.com;, the Tigers crowned four champions and had nine wrestlers finish in the top three, topping the Vinita Hornets by one point for the team title. Justice Jones’ pin in the championship final at 195 pounds clinched the title for the Tigers.
The Hornets, who had two individual champions, stayed close with their depth, getting 13 wrestlers in the top-six, including four third place finishes, to score 208 points.
Blackwell used a similar formula to finish in third place with 184.5 points, getting two firsts, two seconds, two thirds and three fourths.
Tonkawa, which crowned four champions but only had three other individual medalists, finished fourth with 146 points, 26 points ahead of the Ridgerunners.
“The tournament went really smooth,” Ward said. “We all a lot of people help us out and we really appreciate all the help from the volunteers that we had.”
Friday’s tournament, coming on the first of February, also marked the beginning of the home stretch for the wrestling season. Grove will participate in the Dual State Championships at Claremore High School on Saturday before heading to the 5A East Regional at Tulsa Edison High School on Feb. 15-16.
“We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty,” Ward said. “We’ve just got to get everybody healthy and ready to go.”
