Alcester Union & Hudsonite Online

Alcester-Hudson had five youth wrestlers make it to the State Tournament. They are (l to r) Cash Hemmingson, Erik Barnes, Brandon Schuller, Rick Heiman and Zach McKee.

RAPID CITY - The State AAU wrestling competition was held April 4-5-6 at Rapid City.

Though making it through Districts and Regions in the previous weeks, wrestlers still had to weigh-in Friday afternoon to maintain eligibility for the State Meet. The next two days of wrestling took place in the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. Wrestling would begin at 9 am Saturday.

Just over 1,100 wrestlers were paraded on to the mat at the opening ceremonies and each wrestling club was introduced as they came onto the mat. For the next 10 hours wrestling would continue with 21 matches in action simultaneously through out most of the day. Again, double elimination would take you out of contention.

Those who made it through Saturday with one loss or less would wrestle Sunday for a first through eighth place finish. Saturday’s standing determined what place each wrestler would be going for in the Championship matches on Sunday. Each wrestler would only wrestle one time on Sunday.

Sunday morning could not come soon enough for those in the championship round. Again the line to get into the building started before 7:00 a.m. At 8:45 a.m. a church service was held at mat side for the wrestlers.

At 9:30 the Parade of Champions began. All wrestlers who would place eighth or higher were brought out onto the mat for introduction. Wrestling started at 10. Twelve matches would be wrestled simultaneously to complete the days wrestling. As each division’s weight class was completed, the wrestlers were taken to the awards podium and presented with their awards medals.

Results for the State Tournament will be in next week’s paper.

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