The Blazers just wrapped up our second week of competition for the ‘22-’23 wrestling season.

The Blazer wrestling team competed at all levels this week with some great opportunities to get better. Tuesday and Friday our JV squads had competitions, Varsity 2’s (backups) had a Varsity-level competition on Saturday, and Varsity Boys & Girls teams competed in Council Bluffs, Iowa on Friday and Saturday.

Tuesday: The JV squad headed to Blue Valley West on Tuesday for the first set of duals in the newly organized JV League Duals schedule that features teams from Olathe, Blue Valley, and Spring Hill. This is a great opportunity for kids to get matches as well as learn how to compete as a team in a dual format. The JV and C-Team/ Freshmen squads dominated the night each going 2-0 (4-0 overall) with wins against Blue Valley Southwest and Blue Valley West. This was the first competition for a lot of young guys coming into the season. Cameron Atkinson and Cash Meyers headed up the rosters and boosted the team scores with pins in both duals. Next week, the squads will travel to Olathe Northwest for another round of duals.

Friday ( JV): Another JV squad made of around 30 wrestlers traveled to Santa Fe Trail High School for their annual JV mixer. This is a great opportunity for even more of our athletes to get adequate matches and pair them up based on skill level. Joseph Cisneros, Tristan Harper, and Hunter Weigart all went undefeated on the evening, and the rest of the team battled tough all night. This squad will only get better as the year goes on.

Saturday (Varsity 2’s): Varsity 2’s traveled to the Melvin Douglas invite at Highland Park High School in Topeka, which is a varsity-level tournament featuring schools from Topeka, KCK, and Shawnee-Mission. This was going to be a test to see where these competitors measure in terms of Varsity competition. We finished the day with 9 of 13 wrestlers placing and 2 champs from Eithan Kodger and Benton Eimers. Finishing the tournament as Team Champs, this is an astounding feat for our wrestlers and a big sign of the depth of talent we have in our room here at GEHS.

Council Bluffs: Ladies were up first as they competed very well at the tournament finishing 7th out of 32 girls teams with squads from KS, NE, MO, and IA competing. At the top of our list are Shelby Davis and Karen Rodriguez as they both made the finals in their respective classes. Both athletes ended with 2nd place. Three other ladies placed in the top 8 and they were: Kaira Mannio, Naomi Mayfield, and Ellie Rhea. Everyone battled tough.

The guys’ team finished at T-25 of 41 scoring teams, again with squads from all over the Midwest coming to compete. Alonzo Borjas was the highest ranking boy finisher in 7th place.