Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall wrestler Dawson DeCamp (right) prepares to take down a New London-Spicer opponent during a 139-pound match in the Section 3AA tournament on Thursday at Marshall High School. Marshall defeated the Wildcats and will host the section semifinals and championship on Saturday.

MARSHALL — Despite facing an early deficit, the Marshall wrestling team rattled off five straight pins to close out the Section 3AA quarterfinals with a 45-18 win over New London-Spicer. The win gives Marshall the opportunity to fight another day for its first section title since 2019, a title that gave Marshall its lone team state tournament appearance.

“We knew we were going to win. We’ve been working really hard in practice, so we know what we’re capable of,” Marshall wrestler Lincoln Christenson said.

As the top seed, the Marshall Tigers earned a first-round bye to the quarterfinals. NLS, meanwhile, had to go through a first-round match against MAHACA, which it won 40-27.

Trailing 18-15, Marshall first went ahead when Brayden Chandler earned a pin after leading 12-1 in the second period. Josh Kraft doubled down in 172 with another pin in 1:27 to give Marshall its first cushion of more than one match victory, 27-18.

From there, the Tigers continued to roll. Aidan Mattison took an early lead with a takedown in 189 before earning the win by fall in 215 to seal the Marshall victory with a 33-18 lead, and Gavin Schaefer led 10-1 through two periods in his 215 match before earning the pin. 

New London-Spicer looked poised to end the string of Marshall pins with some window dressing in the heavyweight battle, but Braedyn VanMeveren finished strong with a pin in 5:16 to bring Marshall’s lead up to its final margin of 45-18.

“Based on our scouting and reports that we pulled, we knew that they were tough down low and we knew that they were going to get some wins and some points regardless of how we shuffled our lineup around,” Marshall head coach Ethan Hoppe said. “We knew that at some point, that was hopefully going to stop and start going in our favor… We knew that ultimately we were going to hit a point in our lineup where we were going to get what we needed to come out on top.”

The quarterfinal matchup was back-and-forth early. After New London-Spicer earned the match’s first 6 points, Marshall answered with a dominant win from Lincoln Christenson in 114. Christenson got a quick takedown and a near-fall to earn a 7-0 lead in the first period. 

Just when it seemed as if he’d fall shy of the pin, the official signaled Christenson’s win by fall just ahead of the buzzer to earn 6 points for Marshall.

After facing a 10-6 deficit, the Tigers again answered the call with an 11-0 major decision from Landon Marthaler to knot the dual back up. Marthaler lifted up his opponent before dropping him to the mat for a 3-point takedown and went up 6-0 after another takedown in the second. 

After starting on the bottom in the third period, Marthaler got an escape and his opponent was called for stalling to make the score 8-0, and he got one last near-fall in the waning minutes to secure the major decision. 

Facing a 5-point deficit entering 139, Dawson DeCamp started the Marshall comeback with a pair of takedowns to end the first period leading 6-2. He got another in the second by answering his opponent’s escape with a takedown to go up 9-3.

In the third period, DeCamp started with another takedown to go up 12-3. His opponent got an escape and reversal to prevent DeCamp from securing a major decision, but DeCamp still earned a 12-7 victory by decision to trim the Wildcats’ lead down to 15-13.

“You’ve just got to support your teammates and stay confident. Just believe in your abilities,” DeCamp said of his team’s mentality when facing the deficit. “Just go out and fight out there, and just believe.”

After a scoreless first period in 145, Tyson Louwagie got on the board early in the second with an escape. The rest of the period went scoreless, but a reversal put NLS on top. Still, Louwagie came up with a clutch tying escape and beat the buzzer with a 3-point near-fall to earn the 5-2 win and give Marshall a 16-15 lead.

Drew Chandler was taken down in the opening seconds of his 152-pound match but got on the board with an escape and a takedown to take a 4-3 lead by the end of the first period. He finished the second period trailing 5-4, but regained the lead with a reversal of his own. Still, one more reversal by his opponent reversed the result for a 7-6 decision in favor of the Wildcats, giving NLS an 18-16 lead in the dual.

An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was assessed against Marshall, setting the Tigers back another point into an 18-15 deficit. 

Keynan Coequyt was pinned 40 seconds into the second period of his 107 match while Levi Kraft fell into a 6-2 hole in the first period of his 121 match before falling by 16-4 major decision.

In 133, Gavin Williams was challenged with an early deficit and eventually fell via 19-5 technical fall in the third period. 

Marshall will host the Section 3AA semifinals and championship on Saturday, with semifinal matches slated for 12:30 p.m. and the section championship slated for 2:30 p.m. Marshall fell 28-27 to top-seeded Dawson-Boyd/Lac qui Parle Valley/Montevideo United in last year’s section championship, and 37-22 to United a year prior. 

“We’ve just got to limit bonus points and wrestle our match,” Christenson said when asked what his team needs to do to take home the win. “If we wrestle our match, we’ll make it to the state tournament.”

A win in this year’s section tournament would send the Tigers to the state tournament for the second time ever, their lone other appearance being a Class AA runner-up finish in 2019.

RESULTS

107: Kellon Hanson (NLS) over Keynan Coequyt (MARS) (Fall 2:40) 114: Lincoln Christenson (MARS) over Jett Hoffman (NLS) (Fall 2:00) 121: Andrew Sandau (NLS) over Levi Kraft (MARS) (MD 16-4) 127: Landon Marthaler (MARS) over Carson Nelson (NLS) (MD 11-0) 133: Isaiah Nelson (NLS) over Emmett Frazee (MARS) (TF 19-4 5:08) 139: Dawson DeCamp (MARS) over Jeremiah Nelson (NLS) (Dec 12-7) 145: Tyson Louwagie (MARS) over Holton Hanson (NLS) (Dec 5-2) 152: Caleb Nelson (NLS) over Drew Chandler (MARS) (Dec 7-6) 160: Brayden Chandler (MARS) over Rylan Plumley Champagne (NLS) (Fall 5:41) 172: Joshua Kraft (MARS) over Grant McCain (NLS) (Fall 1:27) 189: Aidan Mattison (MARS) over Mathew Gehrke (NLS) (Fall 1:20) 215: Gavin Schaefer (MARS) over Garret Leenstra (NLS) (Fall 4:35) 285: Braedyn VanMeveren (MARS) over Payton Meis (NLS) (Fall 5:16)