Trojans Wrestlers dominate districts, set their sights on state championship

The culture of wrestling is unlike any other sport and where a team’s outcome relies heavily on individual performances, the team mentality can be as strong as any. Shortly after Park Hill Wrestling coach Bill Erneste’s team completed a highly successful district tournament which included eight first place finishes and ten qualifiers for the state tournament next weekend, it wasn’t those who would be competing for state titles on his mind, but those that wouldn’t.

“My number one thing is we left two seniors, Corey Sterling and Ryan Sutten,” Erneste said. “These two men are very special to me. I feel sorry for those two seniors because this is their last year and they’ve worked as hard as everyone else.”

They didn’t qualify all 14 wrestlers, but Park Hill was very pleased with their district performance of 250.5 team points, 98.5 points in front of runner-up Lee’s Summit. They’ll now look to the state wrestling tournament this weekend at Mizzou Arena in Columbia, Missouri where they hope to bring home their second consecutive Class Four team championship. The ten wrestlers going on to compete in the tournament is more than last year’s nine qualifiers and is tied for second this year with Lafayette. Francis Howell Central’s 11 qualifiers lead the field.

After Paxton DiBlasi took third at 103, the Trojans won four consecutive first place matches in the 112, 119, 125, and 130 weight classes. Bricker Dixon at 112 improved to 42-0 and sported a spirited buzz cut with the Park Hill logo trimmed on the side. After suffering his first loss of the year last week, Skylar Wood at 119 came back strong to finish ahead of the wrestler who dealt him his sole defeat and Alan Waters at 125 continued his pursuit of perfection to go 43-0 as he looks to be become part of a handful of wrestlers in state history to win four state championships.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing highlights of the weekend was in the 130 championship match between PH’s Russ Coleman and Lee’s Summit’s top-seeded Spencer Courier. Coleman, a freshman who just recently earned his varsity roster spot, was down 2-1 with under a minute to go before mounting a series of moves leading to a pin and bringing a Park Hill crowd to its feet with a standing ovation.

“He truly believes, never made an excuse and just battled,” said Erneste. “Russ Coleman is only a freshman by grade. He doesn’t say he’s hurt or walk away, he just keeps coming back at them.”

Preston Crouse (140), Kaleb Friedley (145), John Eblen (189), and Hayden Bock (215) earned district title medals after their victories while Nolan Smith took third at heavyweight.

“We’re going to train like we always do,” Erneste said of state preparations. “Our main key is to focus on the things we can control and make sure it’s done right.”

They’ve been favored since the beginning to take home the title, but the Trojans aren’t naïve about the competition they’ll be facing. Francis Howell Central and Blue Springs, along with familiar district teams like Lee’s Summit and Liberty are all vying to bring home hardware.

“Everyone keeps telling us we’re the front-runner and we like to know we’re the front-runner, but we’re battling and we know anything can happen. There are a lot of people that go to Columbia to win a state championship,” Erneste said. “We just want it to be us.”