The Warrenton High School boys wrestling team sent seven wrestlers to this year’s state tournament, a feat the Warriors had not accomplished since 2010.
Warrenton wrestling coach Clayton Olsson believes the boys wrestling team had a pretty successful season. They were co-champions of the Gateway Athletic Conference during the regular season.
“I have a lot of freshmen, a lot of sophomores,” Olsson said. “So team-wise, as far as duels go, in the conference, I felt like we achieved our goals.”
This was the first year Warrenton had a girls wrestling team, Olsson said. Freshman wrestler Caelyn Hanff won the Gateway Athletic conference championship and qualified for the state tournament.
The Warrior boys wrestling team sent seven wrestlers to the state tournament. Kyler Flowers, Jeremiah Kassing, Joshua Kassing, Noah Lohrman, Levi Penrod, Jacob Ruff and Nicholas Schulze all qualified for the state tournament for the Warriors. Flowers, Penrod and Ruff all reached the quarterfinal round of the state tournament. The seven state qualifiers was the most the Warriors had since 2010. They had one wrestler qualify for the state tournament last season.
Out of the eight state qualifiers, seven will be back next year provided they all choose to wrestle next season,” Olsson said.
“They have a shot at repeating, getting back to state,” Olsson said. “And they’ll be a little bit better, a little bit stronger and hopefully be contending a little bit more for actual medals, and hopefully next year we can bring back a few medals from the state tournament, too.”
The limited number of wrestlers on the Warrenton girls wrestling team did create some challenges, Olsson said. It can create challenges in finding practice partners for the wrestlers, he said.
“If one of the team members is absent, then they’ve got to work out with the guys,” Olsson said. “Which isn’t necessarily always bad but sometimes you get a little resistance there from the guys and the girls. And I mean just having the addition of the girls team, it adds an extra element. Extra schedules to have to manage and extra time frames. Just different statistics and different things you have to do. So it adds a little bit of a challenge to the season.”
Olsson is hoping the Warriors can build on this year’s successes next season. One of the focuses for next season will be finding wrestlers to fill out the heavier weight classes for the boys wrestling team, Olsson said.
“Our team’s going to be pretty heavy in the lighter side of guys,” Olsson said. “So we’re going to have to try to find some bigger guys to come in and fill out the program. But I’m really looking forward to seeing how these guys grow and mature over the summer. And just the progress that they can make from year to year and see what they’re able to do next year.”