Rich tradition keeps rolling for Osage

By Kristi Nixon

OSAGE — Four straight state dual appearances.

Twelve total.

That is Osage wrestling.

“I will have been a part of it every year (for three now),” said junior Cole Jeffries, the Green Devils’ 195-pounder who earned a 12-7 decision against Webster City’s C.J. Hisler. “It’s a pretty special one to be a part of with what we have now, and all of the talent. The talent coming from Cresco in Chase (Thomas) and Anders (Kittleson), incredible wrestlers. We just have a stacked team. And, I’m excited for next year some of those eighth-graders coming up like Blake Fox, he’s going to be insane. It will be fun, a good ride.

“It’s a big tradition at Osage. It’s special here, everybody takes pride in wrestling.”

Making it four straight was a convincing 53-21 dual win over the Lynx that came back late for a 40-34 win against West Marshall with their hammers, top-ranked Cam Phetxoumphone at 120 and Carson Doolittle just before that, ranked fifth at 113.

Osage will kick off the state dual meet appearance on Wednesday, Feb. 16 against an unranked Atlantic team boasting three ranked individual wrestlers.

At least a few of the regional dual final matches will feature potential matches for Saturday, Feb. 12 at Webster City at the district meet, including the Green Devils’ most recent 100-match winner, Barrett Muller, at 220 pounds.

“He’s had a great year and we can finish off right at the state tournament,” coach Brent Jennings said of B. Muller. “Keep things moving in the right direction. He’ll wrestle the same kid, probably, this weekend in the finals at districts and have to step up again and do that again.”

Another, will be Jeffries against Hisler.

“They’ll wrestle again this weekend, probably,” Jennings said. “I assume that will be the match-up in the finals, but based on that match tonight, we looked good. We took more shots and were offensive. We scored all the points, the only ones he got were the ones we gave him.”

Jeffries added, “I think I wrestled him really well. I was really heavy on my hands and I taking the shots and he didn’t do a whole lot, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s still…anything could happen. It’s a few days from now, so he could figure something out in a couple of days. I just have to keep going: job not finished.”