UNDERWOOD — Panorama’s George Appleseth will be making his third appearance at the state wrestling tournament Thursday, with fellow Panthers Tyler Van Houten, Gunnar Grunsted and Dan Jensen taking to the big stage for the second time while Dalton Holmes will step onto the mats at the Wells Fargo Arena for the first time. Appleseth and Van Houten are seniors, the other three qualifiers are all juniors.
Van Houten (152 pounds) and Grunsted (170) earned championships at Saturday’s Class 1A District 7 tournament, with Appleseth (132), Holmes (195) and Jensen (285) securing spots by finishing as the runner-up in their weight class.
Danny Nordquist (120) narrowly missed making it a six-pack of Panthers by placing third, with Emry Colby (138) and Ondrej Komora (160) both gained valuable experience while finishing fourth.
Van Houten (50-3) pinned Jackson Dunning of St. Albert in 2 minutes, 22 seconds in his semifinal bout, then posted a 5-4 decision over Luke Stortenbecker (40-6) of East Mills in the finals. Stortenbecker also advanced.
Grunsted (41-10) pinned Blade Chenet of Clarinda Academy in 3:30 before securing his return trip with a 3-0 decision over Cole Bruns (33-17) of Exira/EH-K. Bruns also advanced.
Appleseth (41-8) started with a 4-2 decision over Tri-Center’s Bryson Freeberg, but dropped a 7-5 Sudden Victory 1 thriller to Underwood’s Michael Baker (27-14) in the finals. Baker had posted a 14-6 major decision over Shawn Swain of Griswold, and when Freeberg defeated Swain, 6-3, in the consolation match, Appleseth advanced by ‘rule’ as he had previously beaten Freeberg.
Neither Holmes (44-9) or Jensen (27-18) had such luck, as both had to bounce back from losses in the finals to win a second-place match.
Holmes pinned Treynor’s Jayden Thiel in 1:23 but dropped a 7-4 decision to St. Albert’s Elijah Finn in the finals. When WCV’s Carsen Scheller pinned Thiel in 33 seconds it set up a winner-advances wrestle-back match, which Holmes won by a 6-2 decision to advance.
Jensen needed just 38 seconds to pin Treynor’s Kendrick Umphreys in his opening match, but suffered a loss by fall, in 45 seconds, to eighth-rated Coy Maher of Riverside in the finals. Maher had pinned WCV’s Alex Wells in 1:15, and when Wells stuck Umphreys in 2:18 it forced a wrestle-back, which the Panther junior won with a pin in 4:20.
Nordquist (37-15) nearly followed the path taken by fellow juniors Holmes and Jensen. He lost his semifinal to Underwood’s Blake Thomsen (42-10) by fall in 3:20 but responded with a 9-3 decision over AC/GC’s Zachary Fees, who was pinned by sixth-ranked Tatem Bluml (47-6) of Riverside in 3:29. When Thomsen shocked Bluml with a 9-3 win in the finals it forced a wrestle-back, with Bluml edging Nordquist, 8-5, to advance.
Freshman Colby (8-8) was pinned by Underwood’s Guy Sudmann in 1:15 and by WCV’s Tye Joint in 4:19 while junior Komora (12-8) lost by fall to Tyler Paulson of Tri-Center in 2:58 and by fall to Nolan Hansen of East Mills in 1:29.
Underwood’s 105 points were the highest team total at the tourney, with Panorama second with 86 points and WCV third with 59. A total of 14 teams were represented Saturday.
The Class 1A portion of the state tourney will begin in Session 2 Thursday, which begins at 1:30 p.m. First round matches and first round consolation matches will be held at that time.
