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PrintThe lights were dimmed for introductions, and a spotlight shown on the mat. The Rock Bridge wrestlers jogged into the gymnasium to the “Rocky” theme song for their final home meet of the season, only to be knocked out early in a 37-28 loss to talented Moberly.
Rock Bridge seemingly had no answer early Thursday night for the Spartans, who won the first seven matches, highlighted by pins from Weston Keleher and Michael Jorgensen.
“(Moberly) wrestled really well,” Bruins coach Brook Harlan said. “There were a lot of matches where we shouldn’t have been pinned, but they fought hard and earned it. I believe they are ranked fifth in their class and have lots of ranked kids in the upper weights. So, I knew we’d have a hard time there,”
Rock Bridge did make the contest interesting late, winning five of the last six matches. Senior Justin Davis sparked the turnaround with his pin of Chris Henderson at 112 pounds, but sophomore Dane Griffen stole the show at 140 pounds with his victory over Jeff Martin, who is ranked third in Class 2.
“I knew that he (Martin) would be good, so I knew that I would have to work my stuff,” Griffen said. “I studied him and worked on a move from the bottom all week and I was able to pull it off against him. I knew I had to come out quick against him, and I was able to do that.” Though Rock Bridge lost, there were some promising performances and fans were able to breathe a sigh of relief about Davis, a state qualifier last year, who looked back to form. A broken hand at the beginning of the season nearly ended Davis’ campaign.
“I was impressed by Justin’s performance and expect him to qualify for state,” Harlan said. “He is getting back to shape and his hand is getting stronger...this is only his second match back.”
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