While I would like to give a shoutout to all my Hat Town compadres for winning last night, I'm going to pull a SichardDRalyer and post an article from the Manhattan Mercury. This is not because I'm building up Hat Town's team, but because the article was so incredibly poorly written. (Note: Wrestlers do not equal "players.") Normally the wrestling coverage in the Mercury is done by Dennis Toll, who is usually pretty good. Pay attention in journalism class, kids...
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Manhattan mat men dominate
Dakota Cook Sports Writer

The Manhattan High wrestling team overpowered both Hays and Junction City in its double-dual meet in the MHS south gym Tuesday night.

The Indians, who won 24 of 28 matches, crushed Hays, 63-6, in the opening dual before trouncing rival Junction City, 56-16, for the first-place finish.

"Overall, I was real pleased," Manhattan coach Lee Woodford said. "Even in our closer and tougher matches, we were able to come away with a few wins. I liked the way we went after them tonight.

"The nice thing about this whole thing was, we were able to spend some time down here together as a team. This was actually the first time we've been able to do that. It gave us a chance to build a little bit of an identity, get to know each other, and develop as a team.

"This Saturday we go to Ottawa for a dual-tournament against five other teams," Woodford went on to say. "It's the same kind of format as what we just did, but we'll playing for trophies and medals."

Each of the 14 Manhattan wrestlers finished the night with at least one win. Of those 14, the Indians had 10 players record two wins. Eight of those 10 recorded at least one pin and only one of those eight, 140-pounder Brett Hoshaw, registered two.

Hoshaw, who earned 12 points altogether, scored both his wins in the first period of each match. Like Hoshaw, 112-pounder Jacob Wagner won both his matches. He finished with a total of nine points after winning with one pin and one decision.

Senior 125-pounder Jeb Woodford finished with nine points following his two-win performance; he had one pin and one decided from points. Michael Miller, at 145-pounds, recorded nine points from his two wins, collecting one pin and one decision.

Two Indians, Aaron Bingham and Matt Cox were left with only one match due to forfeits, but each were able to finish with 12 points and one pin. Lee Larson, a 189-pounder, and Derek Eichman, a 215-pounder, each finished with high scores and one pin. Larson finished with 11 points and Eichman registered nine.

Kris Fitzgerald, a 152-pounder, won both matches by decision, he scored six altogether. In as replacement for 160 pound Tyler Warner, Matt Scott went 1-1 and finished with three points.

"We need to work a little harder and get in better shape," said Woodford of his team. "Technically, we probably have only half our stuff in. As far as what we want to get done, we have a long way to go. There was a couple of situations tonight where I felt we could have done a little better job had we put more technique in place."

With about 75 kids total, 35 of which are in their freshman year, Woodford said the training process has been slow.

"We're a little bit behind this year from what we normally are," he said. "What we're looking for (is to) keep getting better each week, which has always been our goal, and keep learning. We still have a lot of technique to put in, which right now we're probably only a third of the way. Hopefully we'll be ready come February."

Junction City beat Hays in their dual meet.