Cloud County Wrestling Concludes Season at National Championship Tournament in Council Bluffs
Looking to follow up a fifth-place finish at the 2024 NJCAA South-Central District Tournament with a strong showing on the national stage, the Cloud County Community College wrestling team had two wrestlers advance to the evening session of day one of the 2024 NJCAA National Championship Tournament before having their season officially conclude inside the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa on Friday, March 1st.
With eight wrestlers competing and representing the T-Birds, Cloud County finished the National Tournament with 16 total points to place 28th out of 55 teams that had representatives competing in the tournament.
The best finish from a CCCC wrestler came at 165 pounds with freshman Easton Boone finishing one win shy of earning All-American status as the Valley Center, Kansas native put together three-straight wins in the consolation bracket following an opening-round defeat to Chance Davis of Cowley. In his first consolation round match, Boone built a 6-1 lead heading into the second period and added another takedown midway through the second to go up 9-1 before adding one final takedown and finishing the match with a fall at the 6:50 mark against Zach Rogala of Harper Community College. Needing a win to advance to the evening session, Boone was pitted against Peyton Asbury of Indian Hills Community College and worked a scoreless opening three minutes before earning a second-period escape after choosing bottom position with his choice. Asbury responded with an escape of his own in the third to tie things up at 1-1 as neither wrestler had a riding time advantage with the match looking likely to go to sudden-victory overtime. Boone had other ideas however, getting aggressive and earning a last-second takedown in the third period to score a needed three points to go on and win by a score of 4-1 to advance.
In the evening session for Boone, Caleb Marx of Snow College was his next foe with another scoreless first period setting up a familiar feel to the previous match in the afternoon with Asbury. Once again getting first choice of starting position and choosing bottom position, Boone earned an escape before being hit with a stalling warning that led to a takedown just four seconds later to grab a 4-0 lead heading into the third. Marx managed to secure a quick escape less than 10 seconds into the final two-minute period and was looking for an opportunity to score a match-tying takedown but was unable to do so against a strong defensive showing from Boone. Another stalling call with 23 seconds left in the match gave Marx a penalty point to pull within two at 4-2 and force Boone to not continue to stall as both wrestlers continued to do what they felt was necessary to win with Boone being able to run out the clock and win by decision.
Needing one more victory to advance to Saturday morning and assure a top-eight finish, Boone ran into eventual seventh-place finisher Michael Myers of Iowa Central as a takedown put Boone in a 3-0 hole that quickly grew in the second period after seeing two more takedowns make it a 9-2 deficit heading into the third. Forced to try and be aggressive offensively, Boone's need to score left open opportunities for Myers to continue scoring with another takedown and three-point near fall as the final score ended up 19-4 in favor of the Iowa Central wrestler after having the riding time point added to hand Boone a technical fall defeat.
Cloud County's other wrestler to advance to the evening session was 197-pound wrestler D.J. Gillins after drawing top-ranked Matthew Marcum of Labette in the opening round as a first-period fall sent the Lakeland, Florida native into the consolation bracket and ended a streak of three-consecutive top-three finishes at 197 pounds by Cloud County. Gillins responded in a strong way in his first consolation bracket match, winning by a score of 7-2 against Soloman Luna of Otero Junior College before grinding out a 2-1 win over Dilen Barrington of Neosho with two early stall calls leading to a penalty point followed by a second-period escape for Gillins. Having advanced to the second session and needing two more wins to become an All-American, Gillins ran eighth-ranked Asaiah Kamplain of Clackamas College who went on to advance following a 17-2 technical fall win over the T-Bird wrestler.
CCCC also saw 285-pound sophomore Gavin Nutting earn two wins over the course of four matches on Friday after being put into an opening-round match with John Bray of Northeast Oklahoma A&M with a 5-3 deficit after one period eventually leading to a third-period fall with just over 30 seconds left in the match. Needing a win to continue his tournament, Nutting scored the only points of his match with Brian Moyer Jr. of Union College on his way to a fall in just 49 seconds to advance and earned a second win with a first-period fall against ninth-ranked Kazz Hyson of Southeast Community College. The lone wrestler at 285 pounds who needed to wrestle four times in the opening session to advance to the evening session, Nutting ran into a familiar foe in Cayden Winter of Pratt who took advantage of having fresher legs by going on to win by a score of 10-4.
Other wrestlers for Cloud County to earn National Tournament wins included Dylan Ancheta (157) pounds, Macallistair Chambers (174 pounds), and Wyatt Powell (184 pounds) as all three won their first consolation round match after dropping their opening matches of the day. Powell landed a first-period fall over Corey Chillcoat of Labette for his victory while Ancheta had full control of his match that led to a 9-0 win over Ryan Fox of Southeast CC while Chambers was able to turn in an 8-5 decision win over Erik Mestras of Trinidad State. Also representing Cloud County at the Tournament and going 0-2 were Brady Foster (125 pounds) and Daniel Vines (133 pounds).