Prep Wrestling: Panthers handle both Van Buren, West Burlington

KEOSAUQUA ? For head coach Al Chapman and the Pekin wrestlers, it wasn?t about whether they would win their duals Thursday, but about by how much.

?Our plan was to dominate after we watched Van Buren and West Burlington wrestle first,? said Chapman about the triangular in Keosauqua. ?We knew if we wrestled as hard as we have in practice we could go out and dominate, and that was our word of the night: dominate.?

And dominate the Panthers did, taking the dual against West Burlington by a score of 63-12 and then topping Van Buren 50-24.

Five Panthers pinned their opponents against Notre Dame, including Brandon Baayen (106), Aaron King (126), Austyn Vogel (132), Scott Entsminger (145) and T.J. Dailey (152). Tayte Schoff (138) won by decision, and Austin Bennett (160), Matt Bollinger (170), Thomas Slaney (182), Greyden Scearcy (195) and Derek Morales (285) all received forfeits.

In the dual between Pekin and Van Buren, Pekin?s Baayen jumped up to the 113 spot and won by fall, and Vogel, Entsminger and Dailey also recorded pins. Slaney won by decision and Scearcy picked up a technical fall victory in the first period. King, Bennett and Bollinger received forfeit wins.

Van Buren?s Jacob Heisel won by fall at the 138 spot, and Zach Corman did the same at heavyweight. Both Jordan Staton (106) and Mitch Garrels (220) picked up forfeit victories for the Warriors.

The Warriors prevailed 47-10 in their dual with West Burlington. Staton and Hunter Coffman (138) won with pins, Sam Dickinson (152) and Garrels won by decision, and Heisel beat his opponent 17-6. Tyler Runyon (113), Curtis Thomas (182), Tyler Roush (195) and Corman received forfeits.

?We wrestled a lot harder than we have been in the past,? said Van Buren head coach Richard Daugherty. ?This week in practice we stepped it up and it showed on the mat. They wrestled hard and aggressive and that?s what we need to do to get where we need to be in February.?

With the two wins, Pekin improved its dual record to 5-4 on the season. Van Buren, on the other hand, gets its first dual victory.

Both the Panthers and Warriors will wrestle one more time before Christmas break, with Pekin traveling to the Iowa City Regina tournament and Van Buren at Fort Madison on Saturday.