Photo by Jake McNeill: Canby's Issac Guzman (left) wrestles with Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial's Ryder Antony during a 114-pound match in the Class A team state quarterfinals at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Thursday.

ST. PAUL — Making its first team state wrestling tournament appearance in 16 years, the fifth-seeded Canby Lancers opened their run at the Xcel Energy Center with a heartbreaking loss in the quarterfinals against No. 4 Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial Area. The dual came down to the final match, but a heavyweight pin dropped the Lancers out of the championship bracket with a 33-27 loss.

Despite the defeat, the Lancers didn’t hang their heads. Returning to the mat nearly instantly for a consolation bracket match against West Central Area-Ashby-Brandon-Evansville, Canby looked like a team with plenty left to fight for and proved it when it bested United North Central 34-28 in the fifth-place game to recapture some hardware.

“It means more than just what it does as a team. It means a lot to the community, as you can tell,” Canby wrestler Eli Greenman said. “We’ve got a lot of Canby fans here. And these boys had to put in the work, along with me, and it paid off. It could’ve gone better, but it worked out.”

The fifth-place trophy is just the latest in a long line of illustrious accomplishments for the Canby wrestling team, a program that boasts 28 state tournament appearances with eight state titles and another five runner-up finishes. Still, this was the team’s first time qualifying for The Big Dance since their 2008 runner-up finish.

“We just have a great group of seniors and they kind of gave the kids, the younger ones, what they needed,” Canby head coach Gary Stoks said. “They pushed them and they worked hard. Maybe one says, ‘Hey, we can get a whole lot of these teams and beat them if we just get in better shape.’ We’ve just got to keep going and not stop.”

While the Lancer wrestlers had certainly earned the right to celebrate with the trophy, they didn’t just keep it with themselves. Nearly as soon as Greenman and Issac Guzman received the fifth-place trophy, they brought it over to Stoks. Greenman, who is Stoks’ nephew, said that Stoks has worked with him since he was a kid on wrestling and that nobody deserves to hold the trophy more than Stoks does.

“These kids, they want to do it for us as coaches, and I knew they’ve been saying the same thing about trying to get me back here,” Stoks said. “It’s just always been a thing where we’ve been here a lot of years, but then we had that big drought. The thing is, there have been a lot of good teams in our area so we just told them that we had to be the one.

“I love this group. They’re something else. They just bond together so nice, and that’s what it takes to be a champion. We didn’t quite get there all the way, but we’re coming. That’s what the key is.”

QUARTERFINALS

The fifth-seeded Canby and fifth-seeded Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial wrestling teams’ matchup in the Class A state quarterfinals on Saturday was every bit as balanced as the seeding would suggest. The two teams battled right down to the wire, but LCWM’s heavyweight victory put the high seed into the semifinals.

Heading into the 285-pound matchup, Canby and LCWM were tied at 27 points apiece. Canby sent Jordan DePestel into the ring while LCWM sent in Mason Adams for the dual’s deciding match.

In the match’s opening period, Mason Adams jumped out to a 7-0 lead after a takedown and a 4-point near-fall. While he wasn’t able to end it in the first, Adams earned the pin 1:20 into the second period to seal LCWM’s berth in the state semifinals, where they fell 43-15 to top-seeded Chatfield.

The Lancers trailed 27-21 heading into 215 but Bryant Hansen came up clutch for the Lancers to keep their hopes alive and force the winner-take-all match to close it out. Hansen got a takedown to finish the first period with a 3-point cushion and got right to work in the second, taking down Solomon Maxwell expeditiously before securing the pin in 2:32.

LCWM got the dual’s opening win when Brody Herbst earned a 12-4 major decision over Cash Antony but the Lancers took control with three straight victories from there.

In 114, Issac Guzman got a second-period escape to break a scoreless stalemate and then secured a takedown to take a 4-1 advantage into the third period. While LCWM’s Ryder Antony got an escape to make it a 2-point match, Guzman held on for the victory.

Canby got its first lead of the day when Ty Rangaard’s aggressive attack against Rowen Antony in 121 paid off with a technical fall. Rangaard got a takedown just ahead of the first-period buzzer to snag a 3-0 lead and only got stronger as the match progressed. 

Another quick pair of takedowns in the second brought his lead up to 9-2, and he eventually settled for a 17-1 technical fall to make the score 8-4 in favor of the Lancers.

Eli Greenman bolstered the Canby edge when he opened his 127 match against Connor Othoudt with a takedown and near-fall to go up 9-1. He eventually earned a 13-4 major decision for a 13-4 lead.

Still, Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial stormed right back. Cason Othoudt earned an 18-5 major decision over Davn VanEngen in 133. Levi Gilman and Talan Osborne then built on that momentum with a pair of technical falls, downing Brennan Giese 15-0 in 139 and Tallen Merritt 160 in 145 to make the match score 18-13 in favor of the Knights.

It was a game of tennis from there. Canby took the lead when Sam Drietz pinned LCWM’s Brody Thorson in 1:20 in 152, then Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial took it back with Ryan Palmer’s 12-6 decision over Blake Giese in 160. Sawyer Verhelst tied the match back up again with an 8-1 decision over Nathan Sickler in 172, but Nick Slater’s pin of Wesley Verhelst in 189 put the Knights on the brink of victory. 

CONSOLATION SEMIFINALS

Any pent-up frustration Canby had after its narrow quarterfinal loss to Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial Area was quickly let out in the ensuing consolation semifinal match against West Central Area-Ashby-Brandon-Evansville. The Lancers claimed each of the dual’s first five matches to score 25 unanswered points and set the tone for their 52-15 victory.

“The positive thing about it is you’re telling me we’re done and we’ve got to move on to the next team coming up,” Stoks said of the bounce-back performance. “You tell the kids being up here for the first time, they’re just a little tense in there, and that’s normal. Lake Crystal’s a good team… But the more experience they got being up here, hopefully that starts us on a big run.”

Cash Antony opened the consolation semifinal in dominant fashion, claiming a 15-0 technical fall over Brody Brunkow in 107. After Issac Guzman earned a 9-2 decision over Nathan Brethorst in 114, the Lancers continued to pile on with Ty Rangaard’s 19-3 technical fall over Keiran Gehrke and a pair of pins from Eli Greenman over Tucker McGee in 127 and Daven VanEngen over Evan Dingwall in 133.

WCA first got on the board when Owen Gruchow edged out Brennan Giese for a 10-7 decision in 139. Still, the result made no difference as Tallen Merritt, Sam Drietz and Blake Giese each picked up pins in the three subsequent weight classes of 145, 152 and 160. Another 12-9 decision for Sawyer Verhelst in 172 brought the score to 46-3 in favor of Canby.

West Central Area got another pair of pins from Ezekiel Sieckert in 189 and Jeremy Blascyk in 215, but it was too little, too late; one last pin from Jordan DePestel against Freddi Munoz in the heavyweight match brought the match to its final score of 52-15.

CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP

From the jump, Canby looked ready to go out and compete for that consolation trophy. The Lancers claimed seven of the first eight matches in their fifth-place game against United South Central and scored each of the dual’s first 24 points and held on from there for a 34-28 win.

Cash Antony and Ty Rangaard each won by technical fall in 107 and 121 respectively while Issac Guzman pinned Anton Anderson in 33 seconds in 114. Daven VanEngen wrapped up the run with a 13-3 major decision over Carter Ahrendt.

Creed Koll got UNC on the board in 139 with a pin of Brennan Giese but Tallen Merritt made those points up in the next weight class by pinning Fynn Bakke in 5:16, and Sam Dreitz defeated Conrad Koll to give the Lancers their largest lead of the dual, 34-6.

UNC responded by claiming each of the final five weight classes, but it was too little, too late and Canby held on for the win.