Casey earns District title, return trip to State
LAUREL — Two wrestlers for the Quad County Northeast Blaze have found themselves heading to the state tournament after qualifying out of the C2 District Saturday.
Seniors Kolby Casey and Ajay Gubbels are off to the state meet of the 10 boys who battled at the penultimate tournament of the weekend.
Casey won the title and moved to 42-3 this season with a second-round pin over Clay Hedges of Archbishop Bergan. He had also won by pin the previous three rounds in a combined time of just over five minutes on the mat during the tournament, beating wrestlers from Battle Creek, West Point-Beemer and Lutheran High Northeast.
Gubbels is now 34-7 after dropping a 10-2 decision against Brek Thompson of Battle Creek in the title match of 182. The Blaze wrestler got to the final with a first round bye before beating Jared Doxey of Winnebago, 9-5, and pinning Bishop Neumann’s Thomas Vrana early on the third round.
Casey won the 220-pound weight class bracket while Gubbels finished second out of the 182s.
“We had several other wrestlers make it to day two and Gage Jensen (160) and Aiden Gubbels (285) came up just short of qualifying, losing in the heartbreak round,” Quad County Northeast head coach Mark Lech said. “The Blaze had a terrific year as a team and look forward to cheering on Kolby and Ajay in Omaha.”
Jensen was denied a trip to Omaha when he fell in the consolation semifinals of 160 with a firstround pin defeat to Superior’s Kyler Boyles. Jensen wrapped his campaign with a 33-18 record.
Aiden Gubbels, dropped a consolation semifinal matchup at 285 with a second-round pin defeat at the hands of Aaron Fellers of Archbishop Bergan, denying the Blaze grappler from making the trip to the state finals.
He wrapped his season with a 14-8 record. Ethan Gregory (106), Bryson Eledge (132), Carter Olson (138), Gavin Wortman (152) and Justin Backer (170) all recorded at least one win to assist the Blaze in finishing ninth as a team at the meet.
The Class C state finals will be held in Omaha this weekend beginning Thursday and will wrestle with Class B in the late sessions to start the first two days.
The medal round will be held on Saturday with all classes including the girls’ brackets.
“Both of the Blaze representatives hope to end their high school career with a state medal,” Lech said.
