’Cats runners-up at Black Hills Classic

Wildcat wrestlers took second place honors at the Black Hills Classic Tournament in Hill City on Saturday losing only to the Class B West River powerhouse Philip Scotties.
In their last outing before the big dance begins at the Region 4B tourney in Rapid City on Feb. 20, the ‛Cats earned 125 team points to Philip’s 197.5.
Tray Weiss, wrestling at 106 pounds, was the only Custer wrestler to win a first place title. Weiss, an eighth grader, scored 24 points for his team and won an 18-4 major decision over Gage Anderson of Lemmon in the match for first.
Two Wildcats placed second in their weight divisions. Landon Woodward scored 14 points in the 120 pound weight class and Sterling Sword scored 18 points for his team at 152.
A quartet of Custer wrestlers brought home third place honors. That group included Pierce Sword at 126 who scored 16 team points, and pinned Belle Fourche’s Elijah Braning in a-minute-36 in the third place match.
Jonathan Lewis placed third at 145 and scored 16 team points with his victory by fall over Zaven Osborne of Sturgis in 1:56.
Heavyweights Ty Dailey (182) and Zayne Severyn (195) also took third place in their respective weight classes. Dailey scored 12 points and pinned Kollby Houdek of Hill City in 1:40 in the third place match and Severyn won by fall over Dylan Webb of Hot Springs in 2:17 in the match for third and earned 15 team points.
Fourth place in the 113 weight class went to Leighton Sander who scored 8 team points.
Also putting points on the board for the Wildcats was Mikael Grace who scored 2 team points in the 138 pound weight class. He won his quarterfinal match over Gage Ravellete of Philip by an 8-2 decision but lost the next two matches by injury default and medical forfeit.  
As for the rest of the dozen teams in the tournament, Sturgis placed third with 94 points, Hot Springs was fourth with 82, and Spearfish was fifth with 75 points. They were followed by Lead/Deadwood, Belle Fourche, Hill City, Newell, St. Thomas More, Lemmon and Faith.
 With his first place victory on Saturday, Weiss moved into the Dakota Grappler statewide Class B ratings for Week 9 of the season, hopping over 12th to make the list in 11th place at 106 pounds.  Meanwhile Landon Woodward moved up two places to eighth at 120 pounds. Lewis also moved up from ninth place to seventh at 145 pounds, Sterling Sword moved up one spot to ninth place at 152 and Parker Noem, who has been out with a minor injury for the past few events, remained in ninth place at 160 pounds.