Class C: St. Paul storms into state tournament

There will be a bit of Blue and Gold on the mats at the CHI Health Center on Friday night.

Thursday evening, three St. Paul Wildcats automatically punched their tickets to the “Best Night in High School Sports” with a pair of victories during the quarterfinal round of the Class C State Wrestling Tournament.

Rylan Rasmussen had a roller coaster 9-8 victory over Francisco Juan of Madison in the quarterfinals at 113-pounds. That was Rasmussen’s second win of the tournament. The Wildcat pinned Chase Schwartz of Stanton in the opening round.

Layne Baker also notched a pair of wins. After the junior pinned Braxton Soll of Arlington in his opening match at state, Baker went on to best Harrison Reed of Minden 10-3 in the quarterfinal at 126-pounds.

Alex Meinecke will join Rasmussen and Baker in the semifinals. The junior opened the tournament with a 17-2 tech fall. Meinecke’s second win came after the Wildcat battled Blakely Sells of Falls City into the second period. Meinecke pinned the Tiger in 3:25.

Derrick Ruzicka and Jaydn Thomsen both won their opening matches—Ruzicka pinned Nate Sanderson of Pender in the first round and Thomsen edged past Bryan Isom of Tri-County Northeast by a 4-3 decision. Thomsen earned the win with a last-second escape.

In the quarterfinals, the St. Paul senior lost 6-1 to Zach Held of Twin River. Thomsen ended up being pinned in the quarterfinals by Robert Gilkerson of Falls City.

Cody Kuszak also competed for St. Paul on Thursday. In a battle of ranked wrestlers, Kuszak lost a 20-7 major decision to Kyler Boyles of Superior.

With three early pins, St. Paul jumped on to the team leaderboard, with the Wildcats at one time sitting in second place on Thursday night behind Battle Creek. After the dust had settled on the Class C quarterfinals, St. Paul was in fifth place with 34.5 points, 2.5 points behind Crofton/Bloomfield. The Knox County kids shot up the leaderboard after heavyweight Owen Kuchar pinned Doniphan-Trumbull’s Tycen Breckner, who entered the match with a 50-0 record.

Battle Creek ended the day on top of the leaderboard with 47.5 points. Cedar Catholic came into the mix late, with the Trojans scoring 39.5 points at the end of the day. Minded ended up in third with thirty-nine points.

Also representing Howard County in Omaha on Thursday was Centura’s Kolten Simons. Simons, who competed at 285-pounds this year, was pinned in the first round by Breckner, with the match lasting two-and-a-half minutes.