A pair of area wrestlers emerged from Saturday’s district tournament at Williamsburg as state qualifiers.

The Columbus/Winfield-Mt. Union Wildcats had the lone champion on the day with Lane Scorpil continuing his pursuit of perfection. The Wildcat senior is now 44-0 on the season after a pair of pins Saturday, beating Lawson Sinnwell of Solon and CJ Davis of Burlington, Notre Dame. Scorpil talked after the meet about the day and how it felt to qualify. “Conference against him (Davis) it was a lot closer but I just kept wrestling, turned him, and pinned him again. I knew he was going to go big but I just couldn’t force anything. Have to stay relaxed. Eventually he’ll try to throw or he’ll just break. It’s pretty tough to stay relaxed, the crowd gets into it, but if I just focus on my offense and what I need to do next then everything just comes together. Getting that pin and qualifying felt pretty cool.”

Two other Wildcat wrestlers finished in third place. Kai Malone at 220lbs opened his day with a fall over Colley Billingsley of Washington. The junior was then beaten by pin by Clark Younggreen of Mt. Vernon for the title before dropping his state qualifier wrestleback to Tyler Hancox of Solon by pin. At 285lbs, Russell Coil opened his day with a loss to eventual champion Gage Marty of Solon by fall. The senior rebounded to beaten Quintyn Rocha of West Liberty 7-5 to set up a wrestleback with Mid-Prairie’s Gannon Callahan where he was beaten 3-0.

The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks will be sending one wrestler on to state with Gannon Callahan finishing runner-up at 285lbs. The Golden Hawk senior manhandled West Liberty’s Quintyn Rocha in the opening round for a fall, then dropped the championship bout to Gage Marty of Solon by major decision before coming back to beat Russell Coil of Columbus to claim the spot in Des Moines. Callahan talked after the meet about the match and how it felt to qualify. “Today went the same way as it did the other two times that we wrestled, beat him early and wear him out. He was very tired in the third period, so was I, but I felt like I had the upper hand. I wanted to try to score some points because only one point for the match is not very much so I was glad I got that last take down in. It feels really good to get there, especially since it’s my last year. This was one of my goals, to get to the state tournament and now we did.”

Cael Garvey finished third for Mid-Prairie at 195lbs. He opened the day with a semifinal win by fall over Braydon Hoffman of Solon. In the championship match, the senior was edged by Jack Geels of Williamsburg 5-4 and lost his wrestleback to Jahsiah Galvan of West Liberty in sudden death. At 170lbs, Kaden Meader took fourth on the day dropping his opening to Drake Collins of West Liberty by fall and the third place match to Koley Kelly of Benton by 7-1 decision.

The Washington Demons saw their season come to an end Saturday. At 113lbs Aaron Boone took third. The freshman was beaten in the first match of the day by Gavin Jensen of Williamsburg in sudden death. He come back to handle Elijah Kupka of Benton by major decision before losing by pin to Kaiden Dietzenbach of Burlington, Notre Dame. Colley Billingsley finished fourth for the Demons at 220lbs. He was beaten by Kai Malone of Columbus in his opener by fall and the junior dropped the third place match by fall to Tyler Hancox of Solon.

You can hear more from the wrestlers and coaches during Wednesday and Thursday’s PM Sports Page program on KCII and catch results at the top of every hour on KCII from the state wrestling tournament in Des Moines.