Greene County crowned three individual champions and a runner-up in Humboldt on Saturday at a Class 2A Sectional wrestling tournament. The Rams three champions are seniors Abe Yoder (132) and Jordan Challen (138), and junior Tommy Bradshaw (145). Sophomore Hunter Ruth (195) finished in second place. All four advance to the Feb. 14 Webster City District with hopes of qualifying for the 2015 State Tournament in Des Moines Feb. 19-21.
Yoder, the top seed, and ranked ninth in 2A by thepredicament.com led 8-3 late in his semifinal, but was head locked to his back in the closing seconds and gave up five points to Webster City freshman Luke Rohmiller, and the match went to overtime, tied 8-8. In the one minute OT, the Ram senior scored the winning takedown to improve to 36-5. Yoder had even more drama in the finals vs. Humboldt’s Zane Russell, whom Yoder trailed 10-5 with 1:15 left in the third period. He reversed the Wildcat and pinned him in 5:05 to improve to 37-5 heading to the Webster City District on Feb. 14.
No such drama was needed at 138 and 145 lbs. Challen is 35-2 after two falls on Saturday. First was a 44 second fall in the semifinals over Jaden Kampen of Humboldt, then came a fall in 3:59 in the title match vs. Conner Schoening of Pocohantas Area. Bradshaw is 35-3 after needing just 37 seconds to pin Aldo Ayala of Pocahontas Area in the semifinals and a fall in 4:35 over Caleb Hemmestad of Southeast Valley in the championship. Challen is ranked sixth and Bradshaw fourth and both have a full head of steam going into the District tournament.
A true-sceond place is wrestled for on the Sectional and District level, meaning reaching the finals does not automatically place a wrestler first or second. If the winner of the consolation match and winner of the finals match have not wrestled today, they have to meet for second place.
Ruth, seeded third, blanked number two seed Dakota Applegate of Humboldt, 3-0 in the semifinals, to earn a trip to the finals. The Ram sophomore is 21-12 after losing by fall in the title match in 2:37 to top seed Tyler Case of Poki. Applegate won the consolation match, so Ruth did not have to wrestle back; he advances to his first career District tournament as the Sectional runner-up.
Freshman Kane Borgeson ended his season with a third place finish at 106 and sophomore Isaiah Yoder was third at 160..
Other place winners that have been determined include Cayden Gerdes (126) fourth, Keyden Pollock (182) fourth; Jamie Theulen (220) fourth; Mark Kendall (170) fifth; George Zito (285) sixth.
The Hampton-Dumont Sectional champions and Humboldt sectional runners-up meet in the first round of the District at Webster City, and vise-versa. The top two place winners in each weight class at the District advance to the State Tournament.