Dickinson places 7 at Class A state wrestling tournament
FARGO — Though the Dickinson wrestling team had no finalists, co-head coach Pete Dobitz said there’s a big upside.By: Royal McGregor, The Dickinson Press
- Clayton Tangen
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FARGO — Though the Dickinson wrestling team had no finalists, co-head coach Pete Dobitz said there’s a big upside.
The team's seven placers will be hungrier to compete for a top spot of the podium next year.
“When you have seven coming back, it makes it nice when they didn’t finish on top,” Dobitz said. “They’re going to work a little bit harder.”
Dickinson’s seven state placers are all non-seniors as junior Devin Berger led the team in third place during the final day of the Class A state tournament on Saturday at the Fargodome.
“It’s always good to place top three, but I wanted to be a finalist,” Berger said. “I worked a little harder this year than I did last year and it showed.”
Berger, the No. 3 seed at 126 pounds, had high hopes coming into state. His championship dreams were dashed when he took a 5-4 loss to Bismarck’s Logan Boese in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
“To lose in the quarters was really tough,” Berger said.
The Dickinson junior battled back to win four straight matches via pin in times of 19 seconds, 19 seconds, 3:55 and 2:08. He capped off the weekend with a third-place match win against Wahpeton’s Logan Meyer in 2:08.
“It will make me hungrier for my senior year,” Berger said. “This offseason I plan on working twice as hard as I did this season. I want to win a state championship next year.”
The Midgets also had sophomore Austin Hutzenbiler (113) place fourth after dropping his final two matches. Bismarck Century’s Nathan Humann pinned Hutzenbiler in 2:58. He had come into the tournament as the top seed.
Dickinson junior Jace Dukart (182) and freshman Jaret Lee (106) both took fifth place.
Lee won one of two after losing in the semifinals to No. 1 seed Marlo Bell of Fargo South. The freshman from Dickinson Trinity defeated West Fargo’s Keegan Cronin 4-3 for the second time this tournament in the wrestlebacks.
“I’m so excited,” Dukart said. “I peaked at the state tournament. In other tournaments, I usually do OK, but I wrestled well here.”
Dukart lost his first match of the tournament against Valley City’s Jordan Magnuson in an 8-7 decision in the final second. It took four matches in the consolation bracket, but Dukart faced Magnuson again. This time Dukart used a 5-3 overtime win to defeat Magnuson for fifth place.
“Magnuson is definitely really fast on his feet,” Dukart said. “I just tried to play really good defense.”
Sophomore Clayton Tangen (145) placed sixth for the Midgets. He lost his final two matches against No. 1 seed Cody Haugen of Minot in the consolation semifinals and Wahpeton’s Wyatt Meyer during the fifth place match. Meyer took a 17-3 major decision against Tangen.
The final two state placers for Dickinson were sophomore Dillon Clark (145) and junior Michael Cherwinski (152) in eighth place. All in all, Dobitz said it was a successful tournament.
“I’m very happy,” Dobitz said. “From our seniors down to our eighth-graders, there was a lot of hard work put forth this year and it showed.”
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