By Fred Kroner
Led by four individual champions, the Mahomet-Seymour Junior High wrestling team took top honors on Saturday (Feb. 3) in their own Bulldog Invitational.
M-S amassed 264 ½ points to win the title in the 16-school event.
The Bulldogs champions were Noah Snyder (19-5 at 135 pounds), Nino Caballero (23-2 at 155 pounds), Marco Casillas (24-0 at 167 pounds) and Jayvon Tompkins (20-0 at 275 pounds).
Caballero and Casillas both posted three pins. Snyder and Tompkins had two falls.
Caballero had pins in 1:48, 27 seconds and 28 seconds. Casillas earned his pins in 0:38, 2:07 and 2:14.
Snyder’s pins came in 0:27 and 3:03. Tompkins, who had just two bouts, spent less than a minute on the mat. He recorded falls in 16 seconds and 23 seconds.
The four M-S runners-up were Grant Morphew (20-4 at 80 pounds), Noah Meints (20-8 at 90 pounds), Niko Truax (16-8 at 105 pounds) and Chris Dill (24-3 at 145 pounds).
Dill has two pins (in 0:51 and 1:47). Morphew (22 seconds) and Meints (1:14) fashioned one pin each. Truax had a 15-0 win by technical fall.
Placing fourth for the Bulldogs were five wrestlers: Graham Smolich (11-7 at 65 pounds), Tristan Milinkovic (10-11 at 70 pounds), Dominic Gaudio (14-10 at 126 pounds), Connor McCall (17-7 at 185) and Ashton Lamb (8-14 at 215 pounds).
Milinkovic (37 seconds), Gaudio (1:54), McCall (40 seconds) and Lamb (1:09) each recorded one pin.
The lone fifth-place finisher for M-S was Myles Hartzler (19-8 at 75 pounds). His lone pin came in 3:39.
Three other M-S athletes, who did not place, won a match: Sierra Tuttle posted a 45-second pin at 85 pounds, Xavier Foster recorded a pin in 2:04 at 112 pounds and Kaden Johnson earned a 5-4 win at 119 pounds.
The Bulldogs return to action on Thursday (Feb. 8) at home against Mattoon.
