Dec 16

Written by: ngreditor
12/16/2008 7:45 PM 

Jays upset #1 ranked Howells at Osceola Invite

Larry Boschen

And the crowd goes wild!!

The Newman Grove Blue Jay wrestlers traveled to Osceola Saturday to compete in the 15 team Osceola Invitational. The Blue Jays came away with the 1st place trophy scoring 174 team points just beating 2nd place and #1 ranked Howells by 6.5 pts. Rounding out the top 5 were East Butler, #3 Palmer and Fillmore Central with 147.5, 137, and 122 pts respectively.

When the announcer said 2nd place was Howells the gymnasium erupted as we had many fans in attendance. At the start of the final round we knew it would be close as we only led Howells by 14 pts. It’s been quite a while since Newman Grove has won a wrestling tournament including Howells or East Butler.

After the way things went last weekend the team came in on Monday and they took the intensity in the practice room up a few notches. It showed with the results in Osceola.

The team receiving their hard-earned prize.

Every wrestler scored team points and every wrestler won at least one match on the day. It took a full team effort to win this tournament with the traditional wrestling powerhouses that were there. Each round of the tournament everyone raised their focus, and we were able to keep the wins coming. The team record for the day was 33 wins and 20 losses.

Placing for the Jays:

• 103 – Fr. Dylan Zoucha 4th
• 112 – Sr. Jordan Fowlkes 1st
• 119 – So. Sheldon Boschen 2nd
• 125 – Sr. Tyler Zoucha 3rd
• 130 – So. Jerett Sueper 2nd
• 135 – Fr. Derek Wallin 3rd
• 145 – Sr. Luke Gasper 3rd
• 152 – So. Ben Jacobson 2nd
• 215 – Jr. Derek Stone 1st.

Other wrestlers getting wins for the Jays were:

• 130 – Jr. Matt King 2
• 140 – Jr. Ross Sueper 2
• 152 – Fr. Spencer Wallin 1
• 160 – So. Tanner Bollig 2
• 171 – So. Mark O’Brien 1
• 285 – Sr. Chris Harris 1

The entire coaching staff was very pleased with the effort given by all fifteen wrestlers.

There’s a lot of season left and much more work to be done. We need to continue to improve.

Next up is the Elgin Pope John Invitational and we’ll have some more tough wrestling with twelve teams competing. If you can make it the short drive to Elgin, the meet starts at 10:00. Other teams competing will be Pope John, Greely/Wolbach/Cedar Rapids, Pender, Clearwater/Elgin, Fullerton, Hartington CC, Osceola, Oneill JV’s, Randolph, West And the crowd goes wild!! Point CC, and Red Cloud/Blue Hill. It should be a real exciting day.

With the growth of our team this season we needed to purchase some extra singlets. A lot of teams would like to have this problem. The cost for the singlets has come to around The team receiving their hard-earned prize. $1100. If anyone would like to make a donation of any size to help with this cost, you can either send the money to the school or give it to Christie Wallin or myself, Larry Boschen. Make checks out to NG Jr. Wrestling. Thank You.