By Derek Simon

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Hastings Wrestling rolled through the regular season winning 23 of 27 dual matches, 18 straight heading into section play. Hastings earned the top seed in the section and would face the winner of Park Wolfpack and the Sibley Warriors. Park won the regular season tilt 45-33. The Warriors would be victorious in the section rematch 48-34 and advance to face the Raiders. Hastings easily defeated Sibley 78-3 earlier this season.

The Raiders would dominate the section semi final winning 13 of the 14 matches. Of the 13 wins, 10 were by fall as the Raiders crushed the Warriors 73-6 to advance to the section finals. The win also gave Hastings a 24-4 record overall.

“They are really scrappy team from top to bottom and they fill the whole lineup which is awesome, and our kids came out in there ready to rock right away so it was really good duel from top to bottom and kids came out battled hard. I think our conditioning our technique kind of took over later and matches and we got a lot of pins too, so it was really fun. We pride ourselves on here in Hastings in our conditioning. It might be close in first or second period but then when our conditioning takes over in the third, and they start dying in the third then that’s when we start shining too, we’ve always had good conditioning in Hastings and like I said that’s something we pride ourselves in.” said head coach Tim Haneberg on the Sibley Warriors.

“We will probably face Woodbury first round and that’s gonna be a really tight duel, we beat them the first time but it’s going to be a lot closer this time I think, and then the winner is probably gonna face Stillwater whose very very tough team ranked second in the state. That’s gonna be fun too and winner makes it to the state tournament, so it’s going to be a really fun day.” Stated coach Haneberg on the upcoming opponents.

As coach Haneberg mentioned, Hastings did wrestle Woodbury early in the regular season. That match ended in a 40-33 Hastings victory, that was not decided until the final match of the dual. This time the Raiders would win nine of the 14 matches and take control of the dual in the middle weight classes. Woodbury would battle Hastings, but the Raiders would prevail 46-29. Hastings now had won 20 straight duals.

The Raiders would face off against 2nd ranked Stillwater from section 4AAA for the right to advance to the State Tournament. The Ponies and Raiders faced off in a dual early in the season with Stillwater winning 48-29. The Ponies would again prove to be too strong for the young Raiders as Hastings won just five of the 14 matches. Stillwater advances to State and ends the Raiders team season with a 51-21 victory.

Four Raiders Wrestlers made the final regular season Star Tribune Honor Roll. Blake Beissel (22-2), Jack Bainbridge (202), Josh Route (20-4) and Aiden Erickson (20-3) have all had outstanding seasons. These four and their teammates will now prepare for the individual tournament.

Individual results: 106 Blake Beissel was 3-0 with a win by fall.

113 Mark Svoboda was 1-2.

120 Creed Peterson was also 1-2.

126 Jack Bainbridge moved up a class and went 2-0, both wins by fall. Skylar Little Soldier went 1-0 with the win by fall.

132 Bainbridge was also 1-0 with a win by fall at 132. Little Soldier was 0-1. Hunter Hoff was 0-1.

138 Derrick Steinke was 1-1 with a win by fall. Evan Svoboda was 0-1.

145 Josh Route was a perfect 3-0 with a win by fall.

152 Aiden Erickson was 3-0 and did not give up a point in any of the three matches.

160 Ian Pepple was 1-0 with a win by fall. Nolan Myers was 1-1 with a win by fall.

170 Myers was 1-0. Rico Cooper was also 1-0. Zander Hallis was 0-1.

182 Cooper was 1-0 with a win by fall. Sam O’Connor was 1-1 with a win by fall.

195 O’Connor was 1-0 with the win by fall. Blake Clemons was 1-1 with the win by fall.

220 Tyler Miller was 1-2 with the win by fall.

285 Austin Leflay was 2-0 with both wins by fall. Dylan Bartz was 0-1.

Raider Wrestler Sam O’Conner pins Allen Mancera of Woodbury in the 195 weight class during Hastings decisive win of the Section 3AAA title. Photo by Bruce Karnick