Wrestling: Marian Central comeback falls short against Lena-Winslow/Stockton in Class 1A dual team sectional

OREGON – Marian Central freshman Austin Hagevold knew what needed to be done when the lower-weight matches came up against Lena-Winslow/Stockton with the Hurricanes in a huge hole.

“I was just looking for the pin. We wanted to get up and go, so I just tried to do what I do and pin him,” said Hagevold, who won his 106-pound match with a fall in 29 seconds. “It was time to go. We lost a couple of the upper weights. It was just time to go and win this thing and go to state and win a trophy.”

Hagevold started a furious Marian comeback that ultimately ended just short as L-W held on for a 40-31 victory at the Class 1A Dual Team Oregon Sectional on Tuesday. The PantherHawks will wrestle Canton at 7 p.m. Friday at Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington in a state tournament quarterfinal.

L-W (32-5) dominated the upper weights as the match started at 160, where Jared Dvorak upset Marian’s Max Astacio 3-2, starting a string of six consecutive victories for his team, four by pins.

“Their big guys are pinners and are really good,” Hurricanes co-coach Jordan Blanton said. “That’s where our lineup is a little bit more thin. Our little guys, 106-152, we can go with anybody. We battled. I’m really proud of how we did. Our seniors stepped up in a big way. It just didn’t go our way tonight.”

Marian needed to get any positives it could out of the upper weights, like when Hurricanes’ 220-pounder John Herff kept it to three points for L-W by losing 4-0.

“My job was to go out there and wrestle six minutes and don’t give up the pin,” Herff said. “That’s the whole point, we know their upper weights are good. We’re good too, we just had to not give up pins.

“We knew 106 to 152 was going to be all us. When Augie (Hagevold) kickstarted that, points came alive.”

The Hurricanes trailed 30-0 when the matches went to 106 and had little room for error. They nearly pulled off the comeback to win.

Andrew Alvarado (113), Kaden Harmon (126) and Vance Williams (132) all won by pins and Nick Davidson (138) won by major decision. Charlie Fitzgerald (145) then won by decision to make the score 36-31.

Marian’s Ethan Struck needed a pin at 152 to win or a technical fall to force a tie, but Garrett Luke sent the PantherHawks to the state quarterfinals with a 12-3 major decision.

“We knew how it was going to go,” Harmon said. “Once we got that train rolling, we weren’t going to stop for a while. That’s what the whole goal was. We had to play catch-up.

“I was waiting for [L-W’s Mauricio Glass] to get up so I could go for that cradle or that neck wrench. I knew I needed that pin, and he wasn’t going to give it to me if I was riding on top. Just had to wait to catch him.”

Fitzgerald thought his team was going to pull it off when it got to Davidson at 138 and himself. Williams’ pin at 132 made it 36-24.

“We were on a roll. I was thinking we were going to get back-to-back pins and it was going to come down to the 152 match,” Fitzgerald said. “It was crazy tonight. It was a cool environment to wrestle in. I can’t wait to see what the Hurricanes are going to do in the years following.”

L-W coach Kevin Milder felt like the first match was pivotal for his team. Dvorak scored a late takedown in a match that was tied at 1. Astacio escaped, but ran out of time before he could score again.

“I knew going in it was going to be a tight match,” Milder said. “On paper it looked like we would be favored in seven and they would be favored in seven. Some of those I felt we were heavy favorites and they were heavy favorites.

“Staying off their back was going to be huge. The 160 match was a big upset for us. That kid [Max Astasio] had beaten us at sectional, he’s a tough, tough kid. To get that late takedown was just a battle, that was a big win for our team.”

Fitzgerald felt good about the way the Hurricanes wrestled in his final high school match.

“The guys busted their butts this season,” Fitzgerald said. “It was a great season. It’s sad that it’s coming to an end, my last match ever as a Marian Central Hurricane.

“Those guys left everything they have on the mat. There were a couple of matches where swings could have gone our way that didn’t, but the guys worked their tails off this season, and I’m happy with how the guys wrestled tonight.”

Blanton wants the program that he and his brother-in-law Ryan Prater took over this year to be in this position every year.

“The biggest thing is this experience,” he said. “The reason I took the job with coach [Ryan] Prater is that we want to build a program that is consistently here. This isn’t a one-off. We are happy. We are proud of our group, but tomorrow the work toward next year begins.”

Class 1A Oregon Dual Team Sectional

Lena-Winslow/Stockton 40, Marian Central 31

106: Austin Hagevold (MC) p. Reece Demeter, 0:31.

113: Andrew Alvarado (MC) p. David Prater, 5:19.

120: Arrison Bauer (LW) p. Josh Gawronski, 2:40.

126: Kaden Harmon (MC) p. Mauricio Glass, 2:44.

132: Vance Williams (MC) p. Mark Detwiler 1:27.

138: Nick Davidson (MC) md. Carson McPeek, 15-3.

145: Charlie Fitzgerald (MC) d. Karl Hubb, 17-10.

152: Garrett Luke (LW) md. Ethan Struck, 12-3.

160: Jared Dvorak (LW) d. Max Astascio, 3-2.

170: Eli Larson (LW) p. Connor Cassels, 1:24.

182: Jace Phillips (LW) p. Rob Hernon, 0:43.

195: Griffin Luke (LW) p. Hunter Birkhoff 0:43.

220: Mike Haas (LW) d. John Herff, 4-0.

285: Henry Engel (LW) p. Ray Hughes, 1:37.