ShawneeDispatch.com

Basehor — Two weeks ago the Mill Valley wrestling team took a disastrous trip to Newton that ended with an uncharacteristic team finish near the bottom of the standings and multiple injured Jaguars.

A handful of Jaguars have battled illness in the days since, and the team had last week’s tournament in Chanute canceled because of snow.

Through all of the frustrations and inconsistencies, the Jaguars have battled back and thrived. They’ve had four duals and won them all. The last two came Thursday at Basehor-Linwood and served as their final tune-up for the Kaw Valley League Championships.

Mill Valley beat Ottawa, 54-24, and then took down Basehor, 49-18.

“I thought we wrestled hard,” Keal said of the duals. “After Newton, we kind of had our dobber down. We’ve had four duals since then, and we’ve won all four. We beat Blue Valley North last week and we won tonight, but the main thing is I wanted to see the kids wrestling hard, staying in good position and just basically working because that’s what you have to do when you go to league and regionals and state. You’ve got to outwork people and wear them out in the third period, and when your opportunity’s there to score you’ve got to take it. You’ve got to wrestle with that plan and perfect that plan.

“We’ve got some guys out who are sick and injured, but we’re still winning. We haven’t had a full lineup since Newton.”

Ryan Hodges, the Jaguars’ 103-pounder, was one of those who was sick. As a result, Mill Valley forfeited its first match to Ottawa and fell behind, 6-0. Trevor Boyer quickly tied the dual with a pin at 112 pounds, and Shamin Sakapanah accepted a forfeit victory at 119 that put the Jaguars ahead 12-6. They never trailed again.

Christian Service won a 9-2 decision at 125, Luke Marx won by pin at 130, Cole Tripp pinned his opponent at 135 and Dalton Ellis had a first-period pin at 140 that stretched the lead to 33-6.

Andrew Van Holland pinned his opponent at 152, Kyle Brunson won by 4-3 decision at 160, Joey Roach won by pin at 171 and Jacob Burton pinned his opponent at 189.

Against Basehor, Mill Valley opened with a 16-0 lead as Boyer pinned his opponent, Service won by 14-4 major decision at 119 and Sakapanah won by forfeit at 125.

Tripp won by pin, Van Holland won by forfeit, Burton and Roach won by forfeit, Tory Boudreaux won by 7-1 decision at 215 and Zach Callahan won by forfeit at 285.

Mill Valley now turns its focus to the KVL Championships on Saturday, Feb. 13, at BLHS. The Jaguars are the defending league champs, but Keal said the team won’t spend much time worrying about protecting that crown. Instead, the focus will be on each individual wrestler showing improvement.

“I just want to wrestle like we’ve been talking … wrestle hard, wrestle good position, and the rest of that stuff takes care of itself,” Keal said. “You always want to go and win the tournament, but to me it’s not if you win or lose, it’s how you win or lose. That’s what we’re looking for. You can make a lot of mistakes and win, and then you wrestle someone better and they’re going to catch you, and sometimes you might wrestle your best match and lose but you do a lot of good things that you can build on for next time.”

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