EUREKA • Bonus points provided the difference Wednesday night as the Eureka wrestling team knocked off visiting Northwest 36-22 to wrap up a perfect Suburban West Conference season.
“It was a great night and a fun night,'' Wildcats coach Tim Yancey said. “Over the years, our duals with Northwest have always been like this --exciting and extremely competitive -- and we're really happy with the way we competed. These days, you just don't see a dual where both teams have full teams at the freshman, junior varsity and varsity levels, and that's unfortunate. We try to make things special here with the spotlight, the introductions and the music. We had a great crowd and they were treated to a lot of good wrestling.''
The Wildcats, who won 8 of the 14 matches, captured the dual by coming up with three pins and three major decisions. By contrast, Northwest finished with one pin and one major decision.
“It's always nice when you can win by eight or get the pin,'' Yancey said. “We knew Northwest was tough in the lower and middle weights, but our guys battled to keep it close, allowing our bigger guys to finish strong.''
Eureka received a second-period pin from Levi Littmann at 132 pounds and clinched the victory when fellow senior Luke McClimens came up with a third-period fall at 195. Yet another senior, DeMarco Jackson, closed out the victory with a first-period pin at heavyweight.
Tray Martin (103), Darius Terrell (138) and Luke Gentry (160) all posted major decisions for the Wildcats, who got decisions from Brenden Krask (113) and Matt McClimens (182). A junior, McClimens was a third-place finisher at state a year ago.
“We let a few matches get away from us, but overall, I thought we wrestled pretty well against some tough kids,'' Yancey said. “At 113, for example, that was a huge win for us tonight and it will also help us next week when we seed for districts.''
Both Eureka and Northwest will compete in the Class 4 District 1 tournament at Lindbergh on Feb. 10-11.
Northwest received a second-period pin from Devin Cagle at 220 and a major decision from J.T. Tuck at 145. The Lions' other wins came from Chris Byrd (120), Jordan Starkey (132), Tyler Brown (152) and Cameron Noland (170).
Krask pulled out a 4-2 overtime decision over Justin Nahlik at 113.
In some of the other top matches of the night:
• Northwest's Byrd won an action-packed 12-8 decision over Eureka's Luke Seiler at 120.
• At 152, Eureka's Chris Carter grabbed the lead with a takedown with 27 seconds left in the match, only to have the Lions' Brown come up with a reversal and two late back points in a 13-10 win.
• Before being pinned with 44.4 seconds remaining at 195, Northwest's Evan Campbell gave Eureka's Luke McClimens everything he wanted and more.
