SPRINGDALE — Smithville, Mo., made the most of a second chance to win the Diamond State Duals wrestling tournament Saturday at Springdale Har-Ber High.
The Warriors lost a tough dual to Blackwell, Okla., in pool play on Friday, but senior Dalton Tipton’s pinfall victory in the final match of Saturday’s dual helped Smithville turn the tables on the Oklahoma school for the 35-34 win in Saturday’s gold bracket final of the 24-team event.
Smithville coach Taylor Middleton decided to bump Tipton, normally a 152-pounder, up to 160 prior to the start of the championship match and the plan turned out to be a good one.
“Our varsity 160 got a flu bug and wasn’t feeling very good over there, but nobody else knew that,” Middleton said. “That kid, Dalton, is a three-time state placer. He’s 27-0 now and if we needed a pin he was our guy and he got it done. That was a fun dual and it was great for the guys to get that one. We lost a tough one to those guys the day before.”
Smithville, which has four state placers in its lineup from last year’s team which finished seventh in Class 2 at the state tournament, built a 29-18 lead in the dual in the strength of four straight wins at the lower weights. But the Maroons roared back with four consecutive victories, including a pin at 152 for a 34-29 advantage and Smithville was put in a spot it needed the pinfall for six points and the tournament title.
Tipton delivered, taking a first-period lead then earning the pin less than a minute into the second period to make the near four-hour trip from north of Kansas City to Northwest Arkansas well worth it.
The Warriors came into Saturday’s championship round as the second-place finisher in its pool, after losing 34-31 to Blackwell on Friday, but earned a huge 37-31 win over Nixa, Mo., which went 5-0 in its pool on the first day, then downed last year’s runnerup Lebanon, Mo., to make the finals.
Blackwell coach E.J. Edgar acknowledged he definitely would have liked to win the tournament, but came away from the two-day event very pleased with his team and the tournament.
“When it comes down to one point like that, you’ve got to find a way to get that point either by getting a pin, a major or not getting pinned,” Edgar said. “We’d like to dual them again tomorrow. It was fun. We moved our lineup around a little bit and it didn’t work out for us. We lost a couple matches today that we won the day before, but that’s how it goes.
“But we wrestled eight duals this weekend and got better and that’s what we came here for. We saw good competition.”
Rogers Heritage and Bentonville were the top local finishers, each going 1-2 Saturday in the silver bracket made up of teams which finished third and fourth in each of the four pools.
Host Springdale Har-Ber bounced back from a tough first day to go 3-0 and win the bronze bracket, after going 1-4 in pool play.
Wildcats coach Nika West was pleased with his team’s performance, but also especially pleased with the outstanding wrestling in the two-day tournament, which has gone from 16 to 24 teams in three years. Two-time tournament champion Edmond (Okla.) Santa Fe ended up fourth, going 2-2 on Saturday after going 5-0 in pool play.
“Two guys in our pool were wrestling in the finals, so we saw some tough competition,” West said. “We saw some quality opponents no doubt. But I was excited to put on a tournament like this and I’ve heard nothing but compliments from the coaches.”