SUCCESS AND DISAPPOINTMENT MARK STATE WRESTLING
JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER
It may not have been the finish he was hoping for, but Clayton Smith ended his prep career in a spot most wrestlers never get to — the podium at state.
Smith, wrestling in his fourth state tournament, finished sixth at 220 lbs. in the Class B division last week at state in Rapid City. He was one of several hundred grapplers from both Class A and Class B divisions — including the brand-new girls’ bracket — from across South Dakota competing on four mats inside the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Feb. 25-27. The Freeman High School senior wrestled six times and finished 3-3 over the three days. All three of his wins were by pin.
It was a bittersweet finish for Smith, who had a chance to get into the third-place match on Saturday but lost an 8-2 decision that would have put him there. That moved him into the fifth/sixth-place match late Saturday afternoon, where he appeared to be headed for a victory in the final match of his career. But, leading 1-0 late in the third period thanks to an escape in the second period, Smith got too high in his grasp of Harding County’s Grey Gilbert, and the sophomore was able to flip him for a two-point reversal and scored two additional backpoints as time expired to claim a 5-1 victory.
“Clayton just got out of position,” said head coach Chris Sayler. “It happened so fast; we were riding him tough and it was getting late in the match and we were getting nervous.”
The coach noted that the grapplers had a restart with about 15 seconds left after going out of bounds “and I kept telling him he’s got to keep pressure forward.”
But Gilbert was able to roll him; “I knew as soon as he was going over it was going to be at least a two, and he kept him on his back to make it a five-point move. But at that point, two or five points didn’t matter because we were only up by one.
“It was unfortunate,” Sayler continued. “He rode him tough until the last 10 seconds when he got out of position.”
Smith said he remembers his coach telling him before the match that “this was six years of everything built up,” he said. “I gave it everything I had and did my best to hang on, but I just lost it at the end.”
But the loss does little to tarnish the experience Smith has had wrestling for the Rebels.
“It was always there for me,” he said of the sport. “The discipline, the dedication; it takes a lot to do it over and over again.”
If the loss to Gilbert Saturday afternoon was the low point of Smith’s state tournament, the high point had to be a dramatic win over Tri-Valley senior Ethan Nehlich, who went into the tournament with a 32-6 record and finished the season 34-9.
Smith, who came in 27-8 and finished his prep career 30-11, battled both a bloody nose and the Tri-Valley bruiser in his first match of the third day of the tournament, coming away with an exciting win in a hard-fought battle. Trailing 3-0 early in the third period, Smith got Nehlich — the Region 2B runner-up — on his back and scored the pin at 3:19, the taste of blood and all.
Sayler noted Nehlich’s aggressive start to the match and said that, during several blood timeouts to deal with Smith’s bloody nose, he told his wrestler to “wake up.”
“He answered the call,” Sayler said.
“It was on me to come back and score in the third and I saw my opportunity,” said Smith, who earned a point on an escape early in that final period to make it 3-1 before making an aggressive move on Nehlich as he retreated a bit after Smith’s escape. Not only did his takedown tie the match at 3-3, it got the Tri-Valley senior on his back, which is all Smith needed to seal the deal.
Tri-Valley was deducted a point in the team standings for unsportsmanlike conduct after Nehlich slapped the mat and swore after he was pinned.
“I could literally taste the blood in my mouth as I was looking at the ref,” he said, “making sure his back was flat.”
“Usually when Clayton gets somebody on their back, it’s going to be over pretty quickly,” said Sayler.
More from Rapid City
Smith’s last-second loss Saturday evening wasn’t the only unfortunate turn of events for Marion/Freeman at last week’s state tournament. Freeman senior Ethan Ortman was on the receiving end of what Rebel coaches Sayler and Jeff Wollmann say was a bad call in an elimination match on Friday.
Ortman, who went into his third state tournament with a 24-15 record in the 160 lb. division, had been pinned by Winner Area sophomore Jack Kruger (30-5) in his first match on Thursday and faced a must-win showdown the following morning against Warner/Northwestern senior Easton Steinbach (26-9).
And Ortman had control for much of the match, leading 3-1 in the third period before taking Steinbach down on a hard throw that, if awarded, would have given him a 5-1 lead. But, after a brief huddle, officials called it an illegal slam and, instead of Ortman getting two points, Steinbach was awarded one that trimmed Ortman’s lead to 3-2. Sayler initially disputed the call before walking away, but expressed his anger immediately following the match, after Steinbach scored three additional points in the closing seconds to come away with a 5-3 win.
“You cost us the match!” Sayler yelled as the wrestlers cleared the mat. “You cost us the match!”
Sayler took on a calmer demeanor later and said there was nothing that could be done, and Ortman himself took the high road.
“You’ve got to look at the positives,” he said. “I made it to state, I wrestled good and did what I could, but the ref made that call. It is what it is.”
Ortman spoke fondly of his time with the Rebels and what it has meant to him.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said, thinking about tournaments and duals “and those big wins when everybody gets hyped. There’s just so much energy.”
And he credits the coach he has been with his entire prep career.
“He’s always pushing me to be better and has made me the wrestler I am today,” Ortman said.
The Rebels were also represented in Rapid City by Riley Tschetter, a seventh grader competing in the 106 lb. weight division who finished third in Region 2B.
Tschetter, who went into the state tournament with a 26-13 mark and went up 2-0 early on Sisseton’s Holden Hawkins (32-5), but ended up getting pinned with 1:24 left in the third period.
Then, in the first-round consolation bracket, Tschetter lost 2-0 to Trystan Traupel, an eighth-grader from McCook Central/Montrose who went into the tournament with a 44-5 mark. Tschetter made a move late and was threatening to score when time expired.
Traupel ended up seventh while Hawkins finished fourth.
“He’s the first seventh grader I can remember from Freeman since Cory Wallman to qualify for a state tournament,” Sayler said of Tschetter on Monday. “We’re expecting good things and he knows what it took to get there, and he was back working out again this morning, getting ready for next year. He wants to be on the podium, not just be a participant.”
As for Ortman and Smith, the coach says they have set an example for a good group of wrestlers that are on their way up.
“These younger kids, they see what they have done,” Sayler says. “Between the two of them they are seven-time state-qualifiers and they notice that; I know there were a lot of kids watching online or watching on TV, and those kids want to be in those shoes someday.
“They have put in a lot of time,” he continued, noting that both are wrestlers he has worked with ever since they were in the Little Rebels program years ago, not long after Sayler returned to his home community and alma matter.
“It’s exciting to see these kids grow from first grade until now.”