Being the fifth seed in the state championship gave Warrenton’s Drake Meine confidence he could beat anyone Saturday night on the Mizzou Arena floor.

But his run to the 170-pound title bout may have changed his approach against Raytown South’s Ottis Peeler, the undefeated and returning state runner-up.

“You don’t want to be the guy that people call lucky,” Meine said after his 14-4 loss. “I was the fifth seed and ended up going up against the No. 1 guy in the state. Everybody thinks I shouldn’t have been there, and I didn’t wrestle my match. I was too defensive and too cautious.”

Meine’s cautious approach disappeared midway through the second period, when he caught Peeler on the mat, nearly ending the match.

“When I got him in the cradle, I had to make it stick, and I didn’t,” Meine said. “That one was on me.  He twisted, I twisted, my head slipped and I had to bail before I got stuck.”

It was Meine’s last good shot of the match.

Peeler extended his lead to 12-3 heading into the third period, and kept Meine at bay in the final two minutes.

“It got out of hand late, but we were just going for broke trying to win the state title,” Warrenton Head Coach Kevin Fowler said. “We gave up a bunch of cheap ones late, but that’s just what you have to do.”

Like most fans in the building, Fowler thought the match could have been over in the second.

“We almost caught him in a near-side cradle, but I think we got a little too aggressive with it,” he said. “If we took a little more time to make sure it was secure, I think we had it locked up pretty tight. If we took a little more time to take away that guy’s chance to roll out of it, I think we would have a different result.”

The end result didn’t change Fowler’s view of Meine’s tournament.

Meine was on a revenge tour on his way to the championship match.

He beat Rolla’s Seth Veatch — who eliminated him at last year’s state tournament — in the quarterfinals, and won an overtime thriller over Platte County’s Dakota Schmidt.

Schmidt had pinned Meine three weeks earlier in the Blue Springs Tournament.

That, perhaps, was why Meine claimed Saturday’s championship against Peeler wasn’t his toughest match of the season.

“Not at all,” he said, “He was gassed, and I knew I could take him three periods. I had just gone into overtime and won, so I knew I was fine. I was six pounds under the weight so I was eating and had energy. I thought I could take him three periods and beat him in the long run. But I messed up and he beat me.”

Fowler grinned.

“If he says it wasn’t the toughest kid he’s faced, I’ll go with Drake on that one. But that was a pretty dang tough kid,” he said. “That kid’s a three-time placer and two-time finalist, and we hung there with him.”