Six wrestlers qualify for sectional

STE. GENEVIEVE - The Sikeston wrestling team took fifth place in the Class 2, District 1 wrestling meet in Ste. Genevieve on Saturday.

Nine teams competed in all with Farmington taking first with 204 points and Ste. Genevieve taking second with 141 points.

The rest of the field was DeSoto (3rd, 135 points), Windsor (4th, 124 pts), Sikeston (5th, 109 pts), North County (6th, 84 pts), Affton (7th, 68 pts), Cape Central (8th, 53 pts) and Hillsboro (9th, 37 pts).

"I was shooting for the top three," said Sikeston head coach Chris Hodgkiss. "But Windsor and DeSoto both came in with tougher teams than I anticipated. We could've finished a little higher, but all in all I was pleased with our performance."

The Bulldogs qualified six wrestlers for the Class 2 Sectional at the Farmington Civic Center on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Joe Johnson, a sophomore heavyweight, took first place with a 3-0 record. He's the first Sikeston Bulldog to win a district championship since Andrew Felker did it in 1998.

"Joe winning first place, that's the best tournament he's wrestled all year," said Hodgkiss.

Also qualifying were Adam Miller and Kyle Weeks, who both went 2-1 and took second place with 2-1 records in the 119 and 135 classes respectively.

"Kyle Weeks beat a guy in the semis that beat him three times this year," said Hodgkiss. "A lot of guys stepped up and wrestled big on Saturday and he was one of them."

Lance Berry (152 pounds), Scott Keenan (171) and Andy Croxford (215) all took third place with 3-1 records to qualify.

Hodgkiss said qualifying six wrestlers was close to the number he expected.

"That's about what I thought," he said. "We wrestled well all day long. We wrestled aggressively all day. All six of those guys that qualified, each one had tremendous tournaments. I really think all six of these guys have a really good chance of moving on and going to state."

Sikeston had six other wrestlers that competed but did not qualify. Shawn Cooper (125 pounds) and Cody Weeks (140) each went 1-2.

Cody Ryan (130), Tony Reynolds (145), Ken Masegian (160) and Malcolm Williams (189) each went 0-2.