By Derek Simon

[email protected]

The Hastings Varsity Wrestling team again competed in a triangular Thursday this past week. This time they faced off against East Ridge and Lakeville South before facing a tough Prior Lake team on Saturday. The Raiders dual record coming into Thursday nights matches was 11-4, winners of five straight.

Thursday night Hastings started off against East Ridge. The Woodbury school was no match for the Raiders as Hastings won 12 of 14 matches to crush East Ridge 72-6. Hastings won seven matches by fall and five by forfeit. In their losses, the Raiders lost by decision. Against Lakeville South, Hastings would win the first four matches to take a 22-0 lead and then hold on to win 49-18. The Raiders won 10 of 14 matches. Six wins by fall, one win by major decision, and three wins by decision.

Saturday was a slugfest against a tough Prior Lake team. The match went back and forth with neither team leading by more than seven points. In the end, the teams would split the matches 7-7. Rico Cooper has had a strong season at 170 pounds and was looking to extend a Hastings 21-17 lead.

After his win, Rico Cooper was not happy with himself.

“You know honestly I kind thought I was going to pin him,” Cooper said. “I kind of lost my head halfway through. I kind of was just not focused on the right thing I was not getting wrist control. But came out and got the win.”

Cooper had a significant lead over his opponent when that changed in the blink of an eye.

“I mean he got me to my back for a second and then, you know, I thought about my last match and I got thrown so I had to fight off of it,” Cooper said regarding getting put to his back.

“I was just trying to get the pin for the team,” Cooper added.

Heading in to the last two heavyweight matches, the Raiders trailed 24-31 when Austin Leflay stepped up. Leflay’s match was a hard-fought match, so much so, he ended up with a bloody lip. The match went into overtime, and Coach Haneburg explains what happened, “it goes into overtime, and then the kid bit him. When that happens, it is called a flagrant misconduct, so they get disqualified. We get 16 points and then they get three taken away. So yeah, so if it is like a headbutt a punch bite or something like that. Yeah, so, it’s a flagrant misconduct and we end up winning that match then.”

The controversy over the bite took some time to sort out. Officials and coaches held lengthy discussions about the bite and even took time to re-examine Leflay’s hand. During that time, one of the assistant coaches explained that often times a bit may not be intentional, it is too difficult for an official to prove intent, so the rules are very cut and dry about flagrant misconduct.

That 16 point in the match win brought the Raiders to 30 for the meet. Prior to the DQ, Prior Lake had 31 team points, but the loss of three team points dropped them back to 28. Heading into the final match, Hastings had the lead 30-28. Hastings would again send Cameron Olsen to the mat with a meet on the line.

“Cameron, he missed the last week and a half now, he’s coming back from a little injury so that’s his first match back. That was a really good test for him too. There were a couple of minor injuries and stuff out there on the mat, blood and all sorts of stuff, but he came up on top too, so it was huge,” said Haneburg.

“We had a lot of kids that stepped up and performed really well. Prior Lake’s got a bunch of tough kids, half their lineup is really, really good. So, we knew it was gonna be a dogfight we knew it was gonna be super close like it was. Yeah, that was a kind of crazy ending there and we came up on top,” a happy Haneburg stated.

Individual results for the week: 106 Blake Beissel was 2-1 with two wins by fall. His loss was to the #1 ranked wrestler at 106.

113 Creed Peterson moved down and went 2-1 for the week. One win by major decision.

120 Jack Bainbridge continued his impressive season going 3-0 with three wins by fall.

126 Skylar Little Soldier continues to show why she is one of the best female wrestlers out there with a 3-0 week. All wins by fall.

132 Caleb Folstrom was 1-2 this week.

138 Evan Svoboda had a tough 0-3 week with losses of 1-0, 9-8, and 7-6.

145 Josh Route was undefeated this week. Route was 3-0, all wins by fall.

152 Aiden Erickson was 2-1 for the week with a win by fall.

160 Nolan Myers was 1-1 this week. Zander Hallis was 0-1.

170 Rico Cooper had an undefeated week going 3-0 with two wins by fall.

182 Sam O’Connor was 2-1 this week.

195 Dylan Bartz was 1-1 this week. Caleb Long was 1-0 with his win by fall.

220 Dylan Bartz was 1-0. Tyler Miller 0-1. Austin Leflay 1-0.

285 Austin Leflay was 2-0 and Cameron Olsen was 1-0 this week.

Looking ahead, Coach Haneburg is excited, “We have Mounds View and White Bear on Thursday,” he explained. “They are really tough, they got a bunch of good kids too, so it’s gonna be very similar to this Prior Lake dual. We’re gonna have 14 kids come up and fight for six minutes but it’s gonna be tight.” Hastings will enter those matches with an impressive 14-4 dual record after facing several top programs in the state.

Hastings Cameron Olsen defeats Prior Lakes Martin Owusu in the final match of the dual meet. A gritty, come from behind win by the Raiders and a heartbreaking loss for the Lakers. Even with the agony of defeat on his face, Owusu made sure to show good sportsmanship to Olsen at the end. Photo by Bruce Karnick