Wrestling: Muggli first, Borges third at G-R

While Brody McKnight kicked off the Gordon-Rushville Invitational for the Sidney wrestling team with a pin in his first ever varsity match, Michael Muggli and Zach Borges ended it with the Raiders strongest performances of the day.

Despite being short handed with only seven varsity wrestlers, the Red Raiders finished the meet in seventh place in the 13 team event with 54.5 points. Chadron won the meet by narrowly shading Valentine 128 points to 126.5. Host Gordon-Rushville finished third.

"Yes, we were a bit short handed but I saw improvement from what I saw last week," said Raiders Head Coach John Ganser. "Every day they're learning interdependency in making grades and weight."

Among the most notable of the absentees for Sidney was Tucker Wintholz. He finished second last week at the Cozad Invite at 285 lbs. but came away with an injured shoulder. He is not expected to return until sometime in January.

As the first and third place battles concluded the meet, Muggli was the only Raiders grappler with a chance to win his weight class. Muggli's opponent at 145 lbs. was home-crowd favorite Casey Glasgow. While Glasgow also did battle last season at 145, Muggli was at 138 in 2012-13.

"Nathanial (Petruba) wrestled him last year and beat him, but this is the first time I've faced him," Muggli said. "He turned out to be a lot tougher than I thought."

Muggli ended up in most difficult battle he'd encountered all year. After the first two-minute period ended scoreless, the second was looking very much the same way. But as the seconds ticked away in period two, Muggli pulled off a 1 point escape just before the whistle blew.

"He came out very physical right away and showed heavy hands," Muggli said. "After I got the point, the last thing I wanted to do was to let him escape from me in the last period."

Muggli did what he needed to do as the tight match went though the final two minutes. He held on to his advantage and earned the 1-0 win to take first place. For his team, Muggli gained 20 points on the day.

While the battle for the 145 crown was taking place on Mat 2, Borges was engaged with another home-crowd favorite Shane Child of Gordon-Rushville for third place on Mat 1 in the 138 class.

Like the adjacent match, it was also closely contested war.

Borges found himself in a 2 point hole after the first period as Child earned a take down. The grapplers set up a critical third period after Broges outpointed his opponent 3-1 to tie the match at four. Borges earned his points with a reversal and an escape.

When the final two minutes had expired, Borges had earned third place with a pair of takedowns and an escape.

The road to third began for Borges on a bye and then an 18-2 decision over Adam Hahn of Bennett.

"I didn't know much about him before I wrestled him," Borges said after his match with Hahn. "I try to see how they shoot. I could see he wasn't as good on his feet so I got most of my points trying to exploit that weakness."

In the 170 lbs. class, Brenton Christian placed in fourth after being pinned by Valentine's Kalen Hollopeter in the third-place match. But Christian went 2-2 on the day and collected 9 points for the team. Earlier Christian had defeated Hollopeter 10-8 in overtime during the quarterfinal round. The pair had finished regulation tied at 8-8 before a Christian got a takedown to earn the sudden victory.

Jack Fedderson was also dropped in the third-place match at 113. Fedderson earned 4 points for the Raiders before bowing out.

McKnight, who ultimately went 2-2 while picking up 4 points, began the day off for Sidney with his first career varsity match at 160 lbs. Like his teammates, he also had to go against a home-town opponent. McKnight was already leading the match 7-2 when he pinned Gordon-Rushville's Taylor Hood at 3:42.

"The whole time I was trying to set him up and try to put him in a position where I could take hime down," McKnight said. "When his hand was above his head I could hear my coach and teammates yelling to 'swim the head.' I got him in a half nelson to get him. I was pretty happy when I hard the pin."

At 285 lbs., Dominic Beyer battled in the place of the injured Wintholz. Beyer was involved in two close matches before being pinned. He was leading Raheen Sterkel of Mitchell 2-1 before Sterkel's earned a takedown which led to the pin.

The Raiders travel to Garden County for a triangular meet including Hershey at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. On Saturday the mats will be laid out at the Cabela's Athletic Facility as Sidney hosts the Sidney Invitational at 9 a.m.