CHANUTE, Kan. – The Neosho Panthers will be sending seven wrestlers to the 2014 NJCAA Wrestling National Championships in Spokane, Washington following a strong showing over the weekend at the West/Central District Championship.
Three Panthers wrestled their way into the finals while three more battled back to wrestle for third place in the District Championship at Labette Community College. Tim Prescott-125, Lemuel Johnson-133, Alex Shea-141, O'Shea Smith-Traylor-165, Drew Benner-174, Austin Warren-184, and Dillon Archer-197 all punched their tickets to the National Championship Saturday.
The top wrestler for the Panthers was freshman Lemuel Johnson who brought home a championship at 133 pounds. Johnson received a bye in the opening round which he followed up with a win by fall in the semifinals. Johnson, who leads the Panthers with 24 wins, picked up his team best 16th fall of the year. The championship match would be a much tougher fight, however, as it took overtime for Johnson to beat NEO A&M's Josh Ailey 4-2. Johnson was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler for his performance in the championship.
One of the most anticipated matchups of the championship was at 125 pounds. NEO A&M's Josh Walker entered the championship as the nation's top rated wrestler at 125, and Neosho's Tim Prescott came in ranked second. The pair breezed through their first two matches setting up a 1 vs. 2 showdown in the championship. The matchup didn't disappoint, but Prescott came up just short in the match falling 3-2 to finish second.
Dillon Archer was the other Panther to reach the championship. Archer also received a bye in the first round of the 197 pound bracket. He followed that up with a win by fall in 1:07 in the semifinals before falling in the championship to Shelby Krout of NEO A&M.
"I certainly expected at least seven qualifiers and we did that so overall we had a good day," commented Wayne Petterson. "Could we have done better, maybe, but we also could have fared worse so all in all it was a good day."
Petterson believes he has a number of wrestlers poised for strong showings at the National Championship.
"Now we go to work on preparing for the national stage. We have some guys that I think are ready to make some noise. We know these guys are gamers, and are intelligent enough to understand the training and preparation that goes into this. We were able to learn some things Saturday that we needed to experience against top-flight competition. Now we will work to help our guys find that edge they need whether it's mental, strength, strategy, or conditioning or some combination of all of them."
The Panthers will have a little more than a week to train before they leave for Spokane for the National Championship. The Panthers will leave Chanute Wednesday (Feb. 26) and train Thursday in Spokane before the Championship kicks off Friday.
Full Article:
http://goneosho.com/news/2014/2/18/WREST_0218140022.aspx?path=wrestling
