Three individual champions carry Blue Devils to team title of their own wrestling invitational
QUINCY — Evan Wakefield did not let an early three-point deficit deter him.
Cale Mixer did not let the fact he had been pinned by the same opponent the day before deter him.
And Clayton McClelland did not let more than two minutes of overtime or the gauze falling out of his bloody nose several times deter him.
All three Quincy High School wrestlers won their championship matches in the Quincy Invitational at the QHS gym on Saturday, helping the Blue Devils secure a commanding team victory in the process.
“When you get up a couple days a week at 6 a.m., you lift weights and go through conditioning, come after school and bust your butt for two hours, this is what happens,” Blue Devils coach Phil Neally said. “Great things happen.”
In his title bout in the 132-pound class against Mascoutah’s Marcus Nobles, Wakefield fell behind 3-0 after a Nobles takedown 40 seconds in.
“Once that happened, it wasn’t really like, ‘Oh crap.’ It was more like, ‘OK, now I’ve got to get my escape, get my takedown,” Wakefield said. “I just need to get some points.”
Wakefield earned an escape point and took down Nobles 10 seconds later. Those three takedown points gave Wakefield a 4-3 lead, one that stood up going into the second period.
“It was like, ‘All right, now it’s time to go to work on top. I want my turn, I want my pin. I’m trying to get my points up,’” Wakefield said. “It was just focusing on the next thing.”
Wakefield got that pin 44 seconds into the second period.
“I got my leg in, then I got my half (Nelson) and at first I didn’t know if he was going to go,” Wakefield said. “I leaned it back, started seeing my swipes, and after I got my four count, he didn’t necessarily go limp, but he wasn’t fighting as hard, so I was just like, ‘I’m going to finish this.’ I finished the move, got him on his back, got my hips on top, and it was over from there.”
That victory capped off a 6-0 weekend for Wakefield, who entered the tournament with a 15-13 season record.
“Evan was our star for the weekend,” Neally said. “He’s been struggling a little bit lately, and he’ll tell you that. Sometimes when you’re in a situation like that as a senior and things aren’t going as planned, you have to work through it, make the most of it and get better. In that match, he gave up some points but kept working hard and his reward was winning the championship. We’re happy for him. He needed that.”
About 15 minutes after Wakefield’s pin, Mixer faced off with Pekin’s Aydyn Artman in the 144-pound championship match. Artman pinned Mixer in 1 minute, 29 seconds, in their round two match on Friday.
“I got caught in one of my moves and he pinned me, so I had some vengeance on my mind,” Mixer said. “I just walked out there and tried to make it my match.”
Mixer took command in the first period by notching a takedown and keeping Artman off the scoreboard.
“I knew if he took me down early, it would just erase my mental edge and I would think down, but that’s why I went out there with heavy hands, snapped him, then circled and got my three,” Mixer said.
Midway through the second period, Artman got Mixer in a cradle, but Mixer fought his way out of it and turned the tide, pinning Artman with 57 seconds left in the period.
“He’s super tall and lengthy, so that cradle is really hard to stay out of,” Mixer said. “He got it up, and I just bridged as best as I could. I heard someone say in my ear, ‘That’s a defensive pin,’ and the next thing I know, I’m getting my hand raised.”
Mixer went 5-1 in the tournament to improve his record to 17-12.
“I really enjoy this tournament,” Mixer said. “I’m a homebody, so I don’t really like traveling that much. It’s definitely a big plus there, and all my family and friends get to come and watch me dominate.”
Before Wakefield and Mixer ended their matches in a combined 5 minutes, 47 seconds, it took McClelland and Palmyra’s Blake Rife 2 minutes, 31 seconds longer than that to settle their 113-pound championship tilt. Both wrestlers won their first two matches in the four-wrestler round robin, setting the stage for their title match that turned out to be the longest of the day.
Rife took a 3-2 lead into the second period, but McClelland registered an escape point with 34 seconds left in the second period to tie the score at 3, where it would stay through the third period and 2 minutes, 18 seconds of overtime.
“I just couldn’t give up points,” McClelland said. “I just try to keep myself in good positions whenever I can. I got caught a couple times, but I was able to work back from it.”
The training staff had to replace the gauze clogging McClelland’s bloody nose four times, including at the start of the first 30-second tiebreaker following the one-minute tiebreaker.
“It was just a tiring match,” McClelland said. “It was a little break, but I just wanted to get it done with.”
Following two scoreless 30-second tiebreakers, the wrestlers went to a 30-second ultimate tiebreaker. Eighteen seconds into that period, Rife got a hold of McClelland’s left leg near the edge of the mat, but Rife got called for stalling, giving the deciding point to McClelland.
“When you hold on to the leg like that, you have to make improvement,” Neally said. “If you don’t, it’s stalling. It’s tough. Rife is a great kid. To see Clayton win was great, but I felt sorry for the Rife kid.”
The Blue Devils finished with 242.5 points, 46 clear of Mascoutah in second and 83.5 ahead of Roxana in third in the 18-team field, and captured their fourth straight title in their home tournament.
Derik Lohmeyer (120), Wyatt Boeing (126) and Cooper Kamm (138) all lost their championship matches to bring home second place. Gunnar Derhake (165), Jayden Wilson (175) and King Johnson (285) all secured third place in their weight classes. Jamison Knapp, who normally wrestles on the junior varsity squad but replaced the sidelined Brody Baker at 157, was the only Quincy wrestler to not reach the championship bracket.
“It was a great weekend for our wrestling family,” Neally said.
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