Tiger grapplers fall to Carl Junction at home

Nevada senior Dominic Habjan works to maintain control of Carl Junction's Nick Koon during Tuesday night's dual at Wynn Gymnasium. --Eric Wade/Daily Mail

"It's a tough way to end out Senior Night, but they went out in style." Despite a tough loss to a very talented Carl Junction team, Nevada High School head wrestling coach Devin White still came out of Tuesday night's regular-season home finale with a substantial measure of pride in his team.

In a dual that was much more evenly-matched than the final team scores would indicate, the Tigers gave the Bulldogs all they wanted on Senior Night. Out of the seven matches that were wrestled, the Tigers won three -- two by pin -- and tied the Bulldogs at 21-21 in those matches, but open weight classes eventually lifted Carl Junction to a 51-21 victory.

In the first bout of the night, senior Scotty Bough had a tough draw as he took on a potential state championship contender in junior Trent Landis. The match was very even throughout, but Landis ultimately came out on top by a final score of 4-0.

Senior Dominic Habjan had a similarly tough task ahead of him as he took on freshman Nick Koon, who is ranked in the top-five in the state in two different weight classes. In yet another very close match, Habjan eventually pulled out a 3-1 decision victory.

"Dom wrestled a really tough opponent. The kid's ranked in the state at 19 and at 12, actually," White said. "Tough kid, tough opponent and Dom wrestled well."

Koon was originally slated to take on sophomore Tanner Charles at 119 pounds, but failed to make weight, giving Charles a chance to nurse a knee injury he suffered at the Platte County tournament.

"Tanner didn't have a match tonight," White said. "He wanted me to bump him up to 119, but he's kind of banged up, so I held him out and kind of let him rest a little bit."

Senior Todd Brier earned the quickest victory of the night for either team as he took on senior Joel Rios. Rios is listed as a 152-pounder, but bumped up to 160 and was obviously over-matched right from the outset as Brier needed just 41 seconds to earn the victory by pin.

Freshman Slade Stiles needed nearly the entire match to pull it off, but eventually earned the Tigers' second pin of the night as he took on sophomore Dakota Matter at 103 pounds. Matter brought a noticeable size advantage into the bout and was nearly able to take it to a decision, but Stiles eventually sealed the pinfall victory 43 seconds into the final period.

The other three wrestlers to take the mats for Nevada on the night -- Dalton Shunkwiler, Kyle Bennett and Zach Shepherd -- all came out on the short end of their matches, but still put on very promising showings. Most notable of those was Shunkwiler, who wrestled one of his best matches of the year in a pin loss to senior Corey Cagle.

"He (Shunkwiler) is doing a lot of things better, he's not making the mistakes he was making at the beginning of the year," White said. "He's made leaps and bounds this year, he really has."

Despite losing the dual by 30 points, White came out of the night with his head held high and showed a substantial amount of pride in the performance of his team. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the night," he said. "Carl Junction's a tough team. They've got a solid lineup and it showed."

With that win, the Tigers moved ever closer to the end of the regular season and the district tournament, that is scheduled to be held in Monett, Mo., on Feb. 12 and 13. The last action for the Tigers in the regular season is a road dual at Buffalo, Mo., that is scheduled for tomorrow at 6 p.m.