Highland wrestlers show strong at Carbondale’s Murdale Tournament
A one-hour, 45-minute trip to Carbondale last weekend turned out to be a productive outing for the Highland wrestling team.
The Bulldogs turned in a solid showing, placing 11th overall in the 30-team Murdale Tournament field last Saturday with 115 points. The Bulldogs finished two places ahead of Cahokia (100.5 points), four ahead of Althoff Catholic (95 points), and seven places ahead of Mississippi Valley Conference rival Mascoutah (89.5 points).
Highland coach Shorty Ohren was pleased with the team’s overall showing at Carbondale High School.
“They did really good down there,” Ohren said. “Every kid got a win down there, so that’s a plus, and the girls wrestled well down there. “
Gavin Merkle and Tyson Rakers led the way as top finishers for the Bulldogs. Merkle finished second in the 113-pound class and Rakers took second place in the 150-pound division.
Ashton Zobrist gave a robust performance as well in the 190-pound class thanks to a 9-1 major decision win over Brendan Hicks of Harrisburg.
“It was a close match and then after the first period he was able to open it up and he started getting takedowns and getting him go and he started building the score up,” Ohren said. “He had a couple of tough matches that he lost but his finals match was a good match and he’s finally starting to get everything together.”
Thomas Mitchell also had a solid tournament, placing ninth in the 175-pound division.
Ethan Greenwald continued to build on his solid season, coming in 11th place, showing at 215 pounds.
August Rottmann, who normally wrestles in the girls’ division, finished 14th place overall at 165 pounds and Cody Trowbridge placed 15th at 165 pounds.
Highland’s girls’ squad also had a productive weekend in the tournament with three wrestlers getting top-four finishes.
Nina Landmann won the 155-pound championship with a 4-3 decision over Sierra Malone of Salem. Bryleigh Thomas placed fourth in the 145-pound division and Sophia Elkins fished fourth at 170 pounds.
“The 170 match, we would have won that, but August decided to wrestle in the boys division, so she didn’t wrestle there but it was a really good day for the girls and a good day for everybody Ohren said.
Ohren believes the positive outing in last weekend’s tournament will pay big dividends for the team over the final three weeks of the season leading up to the MVC Super Duals at Triad High School on Jan. 27th.
“Well, with everybody winning dome matches there, hopefully, that’s a confidence builder,” Ohren said. They mow they can win now, so hopefully they’ll go out and start winning ad then we picked up some stuff we need to work on and that’s what we’ve been working on this whole week now. If we want to contend for the conference title, we have to continue to work from the position we’re in now.”
