Patriot Wrestling Earns First-Ever State Medal!
Bunner, Higby, Koehn and Rivera All Compete at State
After an exciting season and district tournament, the Patriot wrestling team saw four wrestlers qualify for the Class D State Tournament, held February 16-18 at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, marking the most wrestlers the Patriots have ever sent to state in one season since the program began in 2016-17!
Andrew Rivera, Jacob Koehn, Morgan Bunner, and Dylan Higby represented the Patriots at State.
Bunner and Higby are also the first wrestlers in Patriot history to make it to state multiple times in their career.
And sophomore Jacob Koehn brought home the first-ever Patriot medal, placing 5th in the 152-lb weight class!
Koehn defeated Tye Stanton of Cambridge in the opening round, but then lost to Trey Schindler of Kimball. He went on to defeat Gavin Hunt of Garden County and Jadon Wells of Anselmo-Merna before losing to Jacob Moravec of Aquinas Catholic, the eventual 3rd place finisher. This loss landed him in the fifth-place finals match, where he secured a victory over Mason Noel of Southern Valley and ended his season 35-17.
Junior Dylan Higby competed in the 138-lb class. In his first match, he defeated Keaton Dowse of Twin Loup. He then lost to the eventual state runner-up Jakob Kavan of Aquinas Catholic in a heartbreaking match. After this, Higby went on to defeat Carter Jasnoch of Ravenna before losing to Nathan Halsey of Elkhorn Valley, the eventual 3rd place finisher. Dylan ended his season 25-15.
“It was really exciting to see Jacob and Dylan win matches in the first round to guys they had lost to earlier in the season,” Patriot wrestling coach Tyler Reeves said.
Junior Morgan Bunner defeated Jarhett Anderson of Hay Springs in the opening round of D-113. He then lost to Sebastian Sauceda, the eventual state champion, in round 2, and Kevin Pedraza from Madison in the third round. He finished his season 37-14.
Finally, junior Andrew Rivera lost both rounds in the 285-lb class to Josiah Brezina of Aquinas Catholic and then to Jacob Stromburg of Palmer, finishing his season 29-18.
“Even though he went 0-2, Andrew gained great experience at state he can build off next year,” Reeves said. “Morgan went 1-2, which was definitely not how we thought it would go for him, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. It was not his best performance of the season, but he is already motivated for next year. Dylan had a super tough loss in the heartbreak round, leading 9-2, but then getting caught and pinned in the final 30 seconds. Jacob wrestled really well, losing 2-1 in the quarters. He bounced back and ended up placing 5th—our first ever Patriot medalist! We were really close to having 3 medalists. The great thing is that they all return next year as seniors, and we are really excited about the great things to come next season. I am super proud of this group and how they pushed themselves and got better every week.”
Competing at state was a very exciting experience,” Higby said. “We were hoping to bring back a few more medals than we did, but overall we all wrestled well and it was awesome that Jacob could earn a medal.
Congratulations Patriot Wrestling on your record-breaking season!