Hickman's Pescaglia advances at state wrestling meet

COLUMBIA — On the first day of the state high school wrestling championships Thursday, Hickman 119-pounder Vince Pescaglia won his match and is on to the quarterfinals. Rock Bridge 145-pounder Thomas Senseman lost both of his matches and was eliminated. Pescaglia and Senseman were their teams’ lone representatives in the tournament this year.

Pescaglia won his first match 5-0 over Dan Wrocklage of Lafayette. The match was scoreless going into the third period, which was a bit of a surprise to Pescaglia. In their previous meeting this season, Pescaglia pinned Wrocklage in the first period.

“It went pretty well,” Pescaglia said. “Not the score I wanted, but I felt like I dominated most of the match.”

Hickman coach J.D. Coffman said, “They probably looked at the film from the last match. I’m sure they said, ‘we need to slow the place down.’ They wrestled a good strategic match.”

Senseman lost 11-3 to Jason Applegate from Liberty in his first match. He battled hard against Alex Langford of Francis Howell in his second match, but lost 7-5.

“It started out OK,” Senseman said. “I was a little shaky just because I was wrestling at state and it was still kind of surreal.”

Senseman said all along that his goal was to get to state.

“I’m definitely satisfied,” Senseman said. “I’m pretty proud of myself.”

Rock Bridge coach Travis Craig said Senseman’s success shows what hard work can do. Senseman had never wrestled before he came to Rock Bridge.

“I think for the young guys on our team, it sets their standards higher,” Craig said. “They see now, that coming in never wrestling before, they can make it to state.”

Pescaglia (44-2) is now Columbia's only wrestler at the tournament. He will wrestle Gage Shaddox (41-7) from Liberty on Friday afternoon. Class 4 starts at 1:30 p.m., Friday at Mizzou Arena.