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Nine wrestlers qualify for state tournament...
Everybody is beatable and the Honker wrestlers showed that Saturday in Tioga.
2/18/20 (Tue)
State qualifiers . . . The State Class B Wrestling Tournament begins Thursday in Fargo. It will see a big delegation from Kenmare, with nine of the Honker wrestlers competing. From left, standing: Diontrea Anderson, Zane Miller, Andrew Christensen, Payton Witt and Maverick Ford. Front, Jaxson Holter, Skyler Ford, William Cook, and Timothy Ford. Photo by Shelly Mogren
By Marvin Baker
Everybody is beatable and the Honker wrestlers showed that Saturday in Tioga.
Not only is this team sending nine grapplers to the State Class B individual tournament in
It was the best performance of a Kenmare-based wrestling team in 17 years and right now, head coach Danny Mogren’s focus is on keeping the kids focused on what they need to accomplish on Saturday.
During a pre-season interview with The Kenmare News in November, Mogren said his team is young but talented and he wouldn’t be surprised if six of his athletes could qualify for state.
“I was wrong on this one,” Mogren said. “It’s good to be wrong in this way. Wow! Nine guys. It did surprise me. There was always the possibility of six or eight, but nine suprised us.”
It leads off with seventh grader William Cook at 106 pounds. Cook, who is 27-15, will open against Carter Wallner of
“William scared us,” Mogren said. “He wasn’t feeling well on Saturday and to wrestle as well as he did, surprised us.”
In addition, Mogren said Cook’s father Josh, helped out a lot by continuing to motivate the young wrestler through the Region 3 tournament.
Timmy Ford, also a seventh grader at 113 pounds is 25-10 and is going up against Charles Herr of South Border.
“Timmy’s win for third and fourth was big,” Mogren said. “When Timmy pinned (his opponent), it was momentum.”
Mogren, who’s been coaching wrestling for 16 years, doesn’t ever remember a time when two seventh graders qualified for the state tournament.
As a matter of fact, out of 200 wrestlers in 14 weight brackets, there are only four seventh graders in that tournament including Cook and Ford.
“It tells a lot about their work ethic,” Mogren said. “It’s impressive. It’s a testament of SunDawg wrestling.”
Timmy Ford’s brother Maverick, who is 18-10 at 132 pounds, will wrestle Grant Schneider of South Border. He was a state qualifier last year as an eighth-grader.
Payton Witt, who took first-place in Region 3 with a 3-2 win over Keyton Meiers of
It’s only the second time this season that Witt has finished first in a tournament after taking the top spot in the
Diontrea Anderson wrestles at 145 and will take his 22-17 record against Jeremiah Sullivan of Central Cass.
Syler Ford, a state qualifier who finished seventh in Class B last year, is 24-6 and will open the tournament against Demetrius Avela of Pembina County North.
Mogren doesn’t remember a time in his tenure when three brothers in Timmy, Maverick and Skyler Ford were state qualifiers.
He said there have been two brother who qualified for state in Roger and Matt Borud and Anthony and Dale Sigloh, but never three, at least not at the same time.
Andrew Christensen is a freshman who has been in a tough weight bracket all year at 170 pounds. He is 11-21 and will take on Garrett Jangula of Napoleon.
“Andrew had to beat two tough kids to qualify,” Mogren said. “He had a good weekend.”
Jangula is undefeated at 28-0, but Mogren has already instilled in Christensen that there’s a reason Christensen is in the state tournament and Jangula will see a different style.
“Everybody is beatable,” Mogren said. “He’s got to work on fundamentals and keep battling. We look at it as an opportunity to wrestle somebody that good. Andrew might catch him right and he has a W.”
Jaxson Holter, who has seen limited action this season, punched his ticket through the consolation and a fourth-place finish. Holter is 1-5 and will open the weight class against Mitch Stuber of Bowman.
And finally, Zane Miller, who was a state qualifier last year, will be wrestling Subas Galvin of Grafton at 285 pounds.
Miller has zig zagged between 220 and 285 all season, but according to Mogren, his wrestling style is a better fit at 285 and part of it is strategy because the 220 division has some tough wrestlers and Miller, who is lucky enough to have the option to switch, stands a better chance of placing by wrestling at 285 as his record will show.
Mogren said Miller has worked hard and has earned that spot.
“The whole team looked good,” Mogren said. “We looked like we hoped we’d look. These guys had confidence.”
2003 was the last year the Honkers had a team of this magnitude. Back then they took sixth as a dual team in Class B and out of 11 state qualifiers that year, five placed. But seven of those 11 were seniors.
“We have nine qualifiers and only two graduate,” Mogren said. “So hopefully, we could get seven qualifiers back.”
And going into the state competition, Mogren said there are a lot of kids the Honkers haven’t seen this year so the wrestlers are going to have to perform to stay on top.
“We want these guys to be hungry and put nine names on the wall,” Mogren said. “We’ll do what we’ve been doing all season. Our practices are working.” ... Read EVERY WORD on EVERY PAGE of The Kenmare News by subscribing--online or in print!