Parkston sends three to championship round, leading state tourney

ABERDEEN - Parkston is starting to run away with the Class B state wrestling tournament.

The Trojans are sending three wrestlers to the championship round and lead by 39 points after the semifinal and final wrestleback rounds Saturday at the Barnett Center on Northern State University’s campus.

Parkston’s Blake Bietz (113), Welsee Dvorak (145) and Brady Reiff (220) each won their semifinal matches. Bietz faces Bon Homme’s Alex Caba in the championship, Dvorak wrestles Canton’s Alex Davies for the title and Reiff matches up against Clark/Willow Lake’s Logan Tonak. Reiff has three first-period pins in the tournament in times of 32, 37 and 22 seconds.

As a team, the Trojans have 148 points.

Philip Area is well behind Parkston in second place with 109 points, Wagner is in third with 101.5 points and defending champion Canton is in fourth with 97 points.

Wagner and Bon Homme each have three wrestlers in the championship round after qualifying three to the semifinals.

For Wagner, Tyler Dion (138), David Kocer (160) and Trevor Lensing (170) are all searching for their first title.

Bon Homme’s Duncan Stoebner (106), Lincoln Stoebner (126) and Caba are also going after their first state championship.

Bon Homme is in fifth with 77.5 points, Tri-Valley is in sixth with 71 points, Webster is in seventh with 56.5 points and Winner is eighth with 54 points. Winner’s Tate Novotny is back in the 170-pound championship a year after taking second place. He wrestles Lensing for the championship.

At 120 pounds, Howard’s Luke Loudenburg is searching to become a back-to-back champion. He will see Burke/Gregory’s Kurt Braun in the finals. Loudenburg was a champion at 106 pounds last year.

Tags: sports, parkston, wrestling, breakingnews, updates