Wrestling wins Thrill in Madill title

The Comanche boys wrestling team came home with the Thrill in Madill Wrestling Tournament title over the weekend. 

The junior high wrestled on Thursday and the high school wrestled on Friday.

“It was crazy,” said Casy Rowell, Comanche head coach. “Logan Stengle wrestled his final match in junior high at 12:30 a.m. We got home at 3 a.m. and then (the coaches and Stengle) got an hour and a half of sleep before we had to get up to go for the high school. The amazing thing was he got second in the junior high and first in high school and he did it on an hour and a half of sleep,” Rowell said. “The kid’s a warrior.” 

The Indians had seven first-place winners on their way to the team victory.

“We led from start to finish,” Rowell said. “We’re peaking at the right time. There’s really nothing more we can do other than get out there and wrestle.”

The Lady Indians placed fourth as a team with one individual first-place winner.

For the boys, Aidan Frye, Matthew Hunt, Legend Yates, Logan Stengle, Erik Roy and Kanon Clift brought home individual tournament titles. 

Gage Jessen finished second, Hayden Dugan placed third, Mike Lair placed fifth and Klayton Smith placed fifth.

“Gage got caught in the third period after he had a big lead, so lesson learned,” Rowell said. “We’ve got to remember to be prepared when someone is way behind they will do some things out of desperation.”

Christopher Jackson and Justin Mann both placed eighth with Cooper Green placing 12th.

Kylie Willer was the individual winner for the Comanche girls. Celina Quezada and Brook West took second. Emily Clark and Kitt Mills brought home third-place finishes. Brailey Presgrove and Bristol Hurst placed fourth in their weight classes. Olivia Harris got fifth and Kadence Billy and Mya Padilla placed eighth in their weight classes.

“Kylie wrestled great, and so did Celina and Brook,” Rowell said. “We were in first place for a while.”

In junior high, Stengle and Ridge Hall placed second, Jake Lane took third and Jaxon Slate, Donny Rosero and Keetyn Selby all placed fourth.

The Indians will host the district tournament this Thursday at 1 p.m. at the the high school gym. In recent years, the school hosted at the Stephens County Fairgrounds.

Coming to town will be Watonga, Hinton, Heritage Hall, Geary, Henryetta, Hennessey and Cassady.

“It’s going to be tough, especially with Watonga and Hinton,” Rowell said. “They both almost beat us last year and we all have mostly everyone coming back. 

There will be two or three mats running simultaneously.

“We’ve got a lot of matches to go through, so we probably won’t get done until 6 or 7 p.m.,” Rowell said.

On Friday, Comanche will host the Noah Presgrove Memorial Tournamnet.

“It will not only give us a chance to honor Noah, but just to have a chance to host a tournament,” Rowell said. “We’re slowly building up to hosting tournaments. We had the Noah one last year and we had a youth wrestling tournament over the summer, so we want to be able to do those things.”

The tournament is all junior high from sixth through eighth grade. 

“It will be good for the sixth graders to be able to wrestle, because they usually don’t get that many opportunities,” Rowell said.