Bonanza Valley Voice -

It was a pure dog fight the entire night. Round after round, the Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa Jaguars wrestling team was stuck in second place, right behind front-runner Paynesville who took a one-point lead after the first round was in the book at their home tournament on Friday, January 13.

Round one tally: Paynesville 61, B-B-E 60, Watertown-Mayer/Mayer Lutheran 55, Sartell-St. Stephen 49.5.

After the semifinals, the host Bulldogs gained more separation with the Jaguars and jumped ahead 156.5 to 146. In third place at that point was Sartell-St. Stephen, who was at 141.5. W-M/ML slipped from third to fourth at 114.5.

In the wrestlebacks, the Jaguars picked up a few key wins. One of them came from Dylan Kampsen who got a 10-3 decision. Another key win came from Jonah Voss, who won by pin. A third key wrestleback win was from freshmen Taiton Lindner, who trailed 2-0 in the first period but ended up pulling out an exciting 7-6 decision win. Seth Roering capped a stellar wrestleback round for B-B-E when he won by pin.

Even with all that, the Jaguars still found themselves trailing Paynesville as the tournament finals were about to begin. By this point the scoring showed: 1 - Paynesville 184.5, 2 - B-B-E 177, 3 - Sartell-St. Stephen 150.5, 4 - W-M/ML 147.5, 5 - Morris Area/Hancock/Chokio-Alberta 80, 6 - Holdingford 66, 7 - Eden Valley-Watkins 43, 8 - Spectrum 23.

The tournament finals had a rough start - or so it seemed - when Blaine Fischer at 103, Canon Swanson at 113 and Tyler Bents at 126 all lost their championship matches. Swanson and Bents both lost by just one point in decisions, and Fischer lost by a major decision but managed to hold off from giving up a tech. fall. That was one of many points in the tournament where the Jaguars scrapped and scraped enough together to stay in contention for first place.

As the finals moved along, the Jaguars picked up a couple big titles from Isaiah Gilbert (145) and Adam Jaeger (152), and other wins followed in order in third-place matches from Jaguars such as Trevor Kern (fall 1:36), Seth Roering (fall 0:38), Spencer Amundson (7-4 decision) and Jonah Voss (fall 1:25). In their championship matches, Gilbert won a 15-5 major decision, and Jaeger won a 5-2 decision. In another championship match, Dalton Guzier lost an 18-6 major decision at 170 pounds.

When the dust settled and the final scoring was in, the Jaguars emerged as champions by the smallest of margins! The top three scores were: 1st) B-B-E 199, 2nd) Paynesville Area 198.5; 3rd) Sartell-St. Stephen 197.5; 4th) W-M/M-L 173.5; 5th) MAHACA 100; 6th) Holdingford 78; 7th) Eden Valley-Watkins 51; 8th) Spectrum 25.

(Right) In the video, catch an interview between head coach Jack Mueller and the Bonanza Valley Voice following the tournament.