Dragons Continue With Early Success

By ERIC X. VICCARO

EVICCARO@STEGENHERALD.COM

UNION — The Ste. Genevieve High School boys’ and girls’ wrestling teams participated in the Union Tournament this past weekend.

Maggie Myracle brought home the most impressive piece of hardware since she was named the girls’ tournament most outstanding wrestler on Friday evening.

“I was very pleased with how the girls’ wrestled,” Ste. Genevieve head wrestling coach Jared Bonnell said. “Maggie managed to win the title at 195 by pinning all of her opponents, three of which were state qualifiers the year before.”

Paityn Basler (107) and Izzy Basler (127) both attained bronze-medal finishes, and Brynna Wehner (117) and Dakotah Meadows (122) both took seventh.

“Paityn and Izzy collected many pins on the day, and Dakotah and Brynna both are showing steady improvement,” Bonnell said.

Myracle advanced to the championship bracket, where she pinned Northwest Cedar Hill’s Olivia Buckley in 3:58 — then pinned Marshfield’s Kylie Martin in just 1:09. Her quickest pin was in a mere :10 over Seckman’s Jenna Brown.

Overall, Ste. Genevieve’s girls finished eighth out of 18 teams.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the Dragon boys recorded a sev th-place finish in a field of 15 squads — paced by heavyweight Ryan Schmelzle’s success at heavyweight.

Schmelzle brought home a gold medal after pinning Marshfield’s Eli Steffen in 4:45. He won all five of his bouts by fall, including two pins in :27 and :28, respectively, over St. Clair’s Aaron Love and Noah Spicer from Fox.

Bryant Schwent and Dalton McNeal both earned third place for the Dragons.

Schwent’s bracket was a true round robin, taking third with a dominating technical fall over Potosi’s Tanner Adamson, 25-10. The match was stopped at the 5:18 mark.

McNeal was in a bracket-formatted class at 126, recording a 6-0 decision over Joseph Lause of St. Francis Borgia in the third-place match. With the victory, McNeal already has compiled 10 individual victories this season.

Levi Wiegand (152) and Kaleb Myracle (160) also advanced to third-place matches, but both found themselves on the business end of the results via major decisions.

Still, Wiegand and Myracle recorded two victories each by pin on what proved to be a successful outing for both.

“I thought we wrestled pretty tough,” Bonnell said. “We had a rough semifinal round, which hurt our chances finishing in the top-four, but I was pleased with how we finished our day overall. I was happy to see our kids get matches.”

Bonnell reported Schmelzle won the heavyweight division for the second consecutive year. Nathan Selby (145), Ethan Ogden (170) and Elijah Holifield (182) all gained valuable match experience.

Last Thursday, Ste. Genevieve’s boys pulverized Cape Central, 54-12, in a home dual match at Peggy J. Johnson Gymnasium.