Three win medals at Eudora Tournament

EUDORA -- Three Fort Scott High School wrestlers earned medals in a 24-school field at the Eudora Tournament of Champions here Friday and Saturday.

With so many schools entered, the wrestlers were placed into round-robin pools on Friday. The top wrestlers in those pools moved into eight-man brackets Saturday.

Justin Sharp finished second at 125 pounds, Denzell Davis fourth at 119 and Lee Culbertson sixth at 152.

The Tigers finished 17th in the tournament with 100 points. Lansing was the team champion with 322 points followed by Chanute with 259 1/2 and DeSoto/Shawnee-Mill Valley with 204 1/2.

Sharp (11-2 with 7 pins for the season) walked through his pool by pinning all four of his opponents, Alex Alsup of Baldwin, Bryce Lockard of El Dorado, Cody Lambrecht of Holton and Zack Atchison of DeSoto High. In the bracket, Sharp pinned Lansing's Garret Hinckley and took a 9-3 decision over Perry-Lecompton's John Mehl. In the finals, Cody Phillips of Atchison County took a 6-5 decision.

"Justin had a great tourney," Fort Scott head coach David Brown said. "He is wrestling well this early in the season. His challenge is to improve each week and peak at the right time of the year."

Davis (9-4, 2) had five matches in his pool, finishing second. he won a 17-13 decision over Justin Lozenski of Lansing then pinned Atchison County's Lane Chew and DeSoto's Todd Atchison. He won by default over Chris Lane of Lawrence before losing to Caleb Himpel of Tonganoxie in the final match.

Once in the bracket, Davis lost his first-round match to Colton Kral of Prairie View, 5-3. But he took a 9-6 win over Eudora's Thomas McLees and a 16-6 major decision over Tayln Fellet of El Dorado. In the third-place match, he met Kral again, who won 12-1.

"He showed some high-level athleticism in a couple of matches," Brown said of Davis. "He has some awesome potential. If he can work to reduce his weaknesses that were exposed in this tourney, he can be a wrestler others will have to game plan to beat."

Culbertson (9-5, 3) had wins over Dom Reiske of Lawrence, 4-0, Derek Scrimsher of Eudora, 15-2, and Jaysson Tansey of Kansas City Sumner Academy in his pool. He also had a loss to Cullen Demarest of Lansing by pin.

Jake Walker of St. Thomas Aquinas pinned Culbertson in the first round of the bracket. Culbertson fought back to take a 10-5 win over Richard Iverson of Holton. A rematch with Demarest was Culbertson get pinned. In the fifth-place match, Chanute's Lukias Stacy also recorded a pin.

"Lee matched his seed and finished sixth," Brown said. "I have seen huge improvements in his takedowns and that has become his greatest strength."

Michael Durossette (5-5, 2) represented the Tigers at 135 pounds. In the pool, he lost to Andy Thurlow of Baldwin, 19-12, took a 21-12 verdict over Matt Korte of Mill Valley, and lost to Jon Harris of Tonganoxie.

Alec Ramirez (2-7, 1) wrestled 145. In the pool he was pinned in three matches by Ryan Allison of El Dorado, James Mullin of Mill Valley and Jesse Tilman of Wellsville. he also lost to Nick Sattwewhite of Rossville.

Blake Cowen (4-1, 3) made his first appearance of the season after recovering from injuries suffered during football season. He wrestled at 160, went 3-1 in the pool (there was one slot open, so all the pool wrestlers collected one win by default) and yet, somehow did not advance even though the result sheet shows he finished second.

Cowen pinned Jeremy Elliot of Tonganoxie and Skylar McGinnis of Chanute, the two who advanced from the bracket, and Mitch Moshiri of Lawrence-Free State. cowen lost to Garrett Bruce of El Dorado.

Elliot won his other three matches by pinfall and also finished 3-1 in the pool. McGinnis beat Bruce and Moshiri but also lost to Elliot and was 2-2 in the pool.

The last Tiger wrestler was Drew Bryant at 215 pounds. He lost a 14-10 decision to Boomer Mays of Eudora and was pinned by Mill Valley's Leo Beck and Hiawatha's Jake Johansen. He also wrestled Damien Willis of Sumner Academy but the result of that match was not available.

The Tigers will wrestle Saturday at a tournament in Ottawa. The first matches are set to begin at 9 a.m.