Cory Kitchel, above, qualified for the State Individual Wrestling Tournament along with Blue Earth Area wrestlers Kean Hicks and Adam Schavey.

Ten area wrestlers qualified for the individual portion of the Minnesota State Wrestling Tournament which was held at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on March 3-5.

Three Blue Earth Area wrestlers and seven from Maple River/United South Central finished in first or second place at the Section 2 Individual Meet in Blue Earth on Feb. 26, to advance to State.

Those qualifying from BEA are Kean Hicks, Adam Schavey and Cory Kitchel.

The wrestlers who punched their ticket to St. Paul from MR/USC are Wyatt Walters, Braxton Simon, Ethan Elvebak, Boden Simon, Ethan Evenson, Konner Harpestad and Cooper Ochsendorf.

The MR/USC team also qualified and faced No. 1-seeded Jackson County Central in the opening round of the team portion of the State Tournament on Thursday, March 3.

Schavey was the lone champion for BEA. Wrestling at 182 pounds, he pinned Dylan Heiderscheidt of Medford with 40 seconds remaining in the championship match to take first place.

Schavey began the tournament by pinning Aden Berg of New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva in 51 seconds and then won his semifinal match by a 14-3 decision over Westfield’s Ty Bronson.

Hicks received an opening-round bye in his first match in the 170-pound weight bracket.

He then won an 8-5 decision over NRHEG’s George Roesler in the semifinals.

Hicks lost to Westfield’s Tyler Archer in the first-place match but did not have to wrestle a true-second match since Roesler had already won the contest for third place.

Like Hicks, Kitchel also received a bye in the first round. The 195-pounder defeated Jermaine Arrington of Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial by a 5-2 decision in the semifinal round to advance to the championship.

Kitchel lost by a pin to NRHEG’s Ralph Roesler and then had to wrestle a true-second match against MR/USC’s Collin Van Cleave.

Kitchel pinned Van Cleave with 16 seconds left in the second period to advance to State with a second-place finish.

The first wrestler to qualify for the State from MR/USC was Walters at 106 pounds.

Walters lost in the championship match to Luis Lopez of Medford but rebounded to defeat Westfield’s Kevin Hodge in the true second match.

Walters had defeated Charles Adams of Waterville-Elysian-Morristown/Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton in his quarterfinal match and Kevin Hodge of Westfield in the semifinals.

At 120 pounds, MR/USC’s Braxton Simon needed 43 seconds to pin Carlos Flores-Lemus of Madelia-Truman-Martin Luther in the quarterfinals and then eked out a 6-4 sudden-victory match over Carson Sturtz in the semifinals. He lost to Westfield’s Bo Zwiener 4-1 in the championship match and had to wrestle a true-second match against Medford’s Jack Meyer, which Simon won 7-3.

Elvebak of MR/USC finished second at 126 pounds.

He received first-round and quarterfinal round byes. Elvebak defeated Eli Kruse of St. Clair-Mankato Loyola in the semifinal round but lost in the championship to Medford’s Tommy Elwood to take second place.

Boden Simon finished in first place for MR/USC at 132 pounds.

Simon received an opening-round bye and then won his quarterfinal match with a 29-second pin over Patrick Adams of WEM-JWP.

He advanced to the championship with a 37-second fall over Talan Osborne of LCWM.

In the championship match, Simon won by a 7-1 decision over Nikolas Petsinger of NRHEG.

MR/USC’s next State qualifier was Evenson who pinned his way to win the championship at 145 pounds.

After a first-round bye, Evenson pinned BEA’s Ethan Oppedal in 1:05 in the quarterfinal round. Next, he needed 1:39 to win by a fall over Ryan Schlaak of NRHEG.

Evenson won the gold-medal match with a pin in 52 seconds over Lucas Vaughan of St. Clair-Mankato Loyola.

The sixth wrestler from MR/USC to punch his ticket to the State Tournament was Harpestad with a second-place finish at 152 pounds.

Harpestad opened with a bye and then pinned Kelton Erler of WEM-JWP in 1:24 of the quarterfinals.

In his semifinal match, Harpestad won a close 5-4 decision over Sam Skillestad of Westfield.

Harpestad lost his first-place match to Garron Hoffman of Medford and had to wrestle a true-second match against Kade Gaydon of BEA. Harpestad defeated Gaydon 8-2 to take second place.

Ochsendorf, at 160 pounds, was the final MR/USC wrestler to qualify for State.

After a first-round bye, he pinned Joe Christians of Westfield in 51 seconds in his quarterfinal match.

Ochsendorf then won by a fall in 3:46 over Parker Meyers of BEA in the semifinals.

Medford’s Tate Hermes defeated Ochsendorf by a 5-2 decision in the championship match. Ochsendorf had to wrestle a true-second match where he secured his trip to St. Paul with a 5-0 decision over Clay Stenzel of NRHEG.

Look for the results from the State Tournament in next week’s edition of the Faribault County Register.