Platte County easily overcame a slow start and rolled to a dominant 69-10 win over Belton on Tuesday at Belton High School that all but locked up the outright Suburban Conference White Division title.
Belton went in with seven open weight classes, but the dual started at an advantageous and provided an opening with juniors Quinten Attebury (175 pounds) and Jameson Lyons (215 pounds) recording what ended up the only victories for the hosts in two of the first three matches.
Already a two-time state medalist in Class 3, Attebury pinned Platte County senior Zach Olson in the opener, and after junior Cooper Hammontree leveled for the visitors by taking a forfeit at 190, Lyons beat Platte County junior Cole Johnson for a second time in three days. The two also met in the Platte County Invitational last weekend, and Lyons built on an 11-4 decision in the first matchup with an 18-4 major decision to put Belton up 10-6.
Belton didn’t win another match, and Platte County now must take care of business as an overwhelming favorite in Thursday’s regular season finale against Truman at Pirate Fieldhouse to go undefeated in the White Division.
Improving to 6-0 in conference, Platte County won five of the seven matches wrestled against Belton, while without three of six returning qualifiers from last year’s fifth-place team in the Class 3 MSHSAA Wrestling Championships. Platte County didn’t use sophomore Jaxson Shute (second at 106 pounds as a freshman) and senior Evan Maccuish (a two-time qualifier with only four losses this season) but did have sophomore Jaden Mathurin (120) and senior Isaiah Seymour (150) take forfeits in their absence.
Platte County did benefit from the return of junior Quinn Lightle, who needed just 55 seconds to pin Isaac Zornes in the 285 match. Lightle missed the previous week due to a combination of a skin condition and an abdominal injury but remained unbeaten on the season as one of multiple members of the state championship football team that didn’t wrestle prior to the holiday break.
Lightle’s win put Platte County ahead 12-10, and freshmen Cade Crawford (106) and Lennon Fitzpatrick (113) and Mathurin followed with forfeits. The lead continued to grow with a pin for freshman Hank Marriott at 126, a forfeit for fellow freshman Ian Giese at 132 and then a 5-4 decision for junior Jackson Woolsey against Belton’s Isaac Michelena-Juarez at 138.
Woolsey built a 5-0 lead and then held on late in the only match to go the full 6 minutes.
Platte County junior Grant Fadler, like Cole Johnson and Maccuish a two-time state qualifier, took a forfeit at 144 followed by Seymour to push the lead to 57-10. Platte County seniors Brock Myers (157) and Darrell Smith (165) both recorded pins to conclude the dual.
Smith is also a two-time state qualifier who placed fifth at 165 in Class 3 last year but expects to drop to 157 for this year’s postseason.
Platte County continues to fill spots as necessary with sophomore Jack Johnson recently opting to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery after not wrestling a single match. Another returning qualifier, he suffered the injury in football and received a diagnosis that led him to undergo the procedure and start rehab. This year’s originally projected lineup also included sophomore Chase Hulett, who suffered a second straight season-ending torn ACL in football that has prevented him from wrestling a single match so far in high school.
Lydia’s Lights/Blue Springs South Invitational
In an abbreviated nine-team field, Platte County captured a first tournament team championship of the season with 10 medalists and seven individual champions during the two-day competition this past weekend in Blue Springs. The Pirates piled up 323 points despite being without Smith (illness) to easily best runnerup Lee’s Summit’s total of 244.
Platte County repeated as the team champion at Blue Springs South, but this year’s field did not include Hickman, Park Hill South and Francis Howell North, although Blue Springs did join.
The individual titles came from undefeated runs for Crawford (106), Shute (120), Fadler (144), Maccuish (150), Hammontree (190), Cole Johnson (215) and Lightle (285) in various bracket setups. In addition, Seymour stepped in at 157 to finish as a runnerup in a five-man round robin, while sophomore Justine Martin went 3-2 to place third third at 165 with Smith out of the lineup.
Marriott won his pool at 126, advanced to the championship bracket final and lost a 9-8 decision to Raytown’s Lehi Butler in their second matchup of the season. Marriott topped Butler 8-7 during a White Division dual earlier in the season.
Entering off of losses in three straight matches to conclude the Platte County Invitational, Shute won three technical falls in addition to a pin leading to a decisive 120 round robin matchup with Pleasant Hill sophomore Victor Schmalz, a fourth-place state finisher in Class 2 at 106 as a freshman. Shute scored a 14-5 major decision to again build some momentum heading into the postseason.
Crawford, Hammontree and Cole Johnson won all five of their matches by fall to dominate their pools and brackets, while Fadler had three pins and two forfeits at 144.
Maccuish improved to 35-4 on the season with three pins and two major decisions, while Lightle received some much needed mat time at 285. He opened with decisions over Blue Springs’ Carter Atagi and Ethan Farias (6-2 and 4-1) and then beat Atagi 5-1 in a rematch for first place. Teams were allowed to enter multiple wrestlers in each weight class, and four of Lightle’s five wins came against three wrestlers from Blue Springs.
