Two Ansley-Litchfield Spartans will find themselves in the Class D fray at this week’s NSAA Class D State Wrestling Championships in Omaha.
Last week, the Spartans were among the twenty-four teams that competed at the District D-2 Tournament, hosted by Wilcox- Hildreth High School.
Amid that crowded field competing for a state bid in Kearney County, Ansley-Litchfield’s Andy Cash and Isaac O’Brien both managed to secure their tickets to the state meet.
O’Brien scored eighteen points for the Spartans after he secured a bronze medal in Wilcox.
The Spartan pinned his first opponent—Stewart Umberger of Randolph—in twenty-seven seconds and then defeated Trey Broeker of Southern Valley by a 5-3 decision to earn his spot in Saturday’s semifinal round. In the semifinals, Cash went into overtime with Zander Albin of Plainview. The Pirate beat the Spartan by a 4-1 sudden victory.
In the consolation bracket, Cash secured his spot at state with a fifty-eight-second victory over Dylan Layne of Pawnee City. In the bronze-medal bout, the Spartan pinned Kenan Hasenauer of Pleasanton in the second period for third place.
O’Brien split his first two matches at 175-pounds. The senior pinned Bennet Jorgenson of Southern Valley in forty-one seconds to begin the meet, but then fell to his Fort Kearny Conference foe from Overton, Tripp Davenport. After losing to the Eagle, O’Brien won his next three matches. That included victories over Jesse McLaughin of Pawnee City, Tristin Benson of Axtell, and Parker Dishman of Centennial.
O’Brien’s win over the Bronco in the tournament’s heartbreak round took less than two minutes on Saturday.
In the consolation finals, the Spartan met up with Gavin Wortman of Randolph. The Cardinal beat O’Brien by a 15-5 major decision.
Five other members of the Spartans’ team competed at the district meet in Wilcox last week. They included Kegan Ritchie, Kaleb Aguilar, Owen Brott, Adrian Nienaber, and James Fletcher.
As a team, the Spartans scored 40.5 team points, which helped them finish the meet sitting in sixteenth place. Ansley-Litchfield bested the boys from Bertrand, with the Vikings scoring 35.5 points, but fell short to edging past Overton. The Eagles ended the meet in fifteenth after they finished the day with forty-five points on Saturday.
Plainview scored 193 points to win the meet.
