CCCC qualifies nine for national tourney

PARSONS — Following Saturday's West-Central District Champions in Parsons, the 12th-ranked Cloud County Community College wrestling team is facing a good problem to have. what to do with its new hardware.
The second-year program does not have a trophy case of its own yet, but the Thunderbirds are working on filling one after capturing a third-place overall finish out of the 10 West-Central District teams.
Cloud County finished with 125 points, just behind third-ranked Northwest Kansas Technical College (176.5) and second-ranked Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (186), while qualifying nine of its 10 wrestlers for the NJCAA Wrestling Championships, set for March 1-2 in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
"I'm extremely happy. The last two weeks after the Jayhawk Duals we really focused on making sure we do the right things and the guys really showed up," said Cloud County head coach, Cody Cole. "I really do think we're a good tournament team. That's where we excel. Everyone knew their job at the end of the day was to be in a position to qualify for the national tournament."
Headlining the group of nine guys who will represent the T-Birds in two weeks out in Iowa was redshirt freshman Austin Eldredge as he became the first West-Central District champion in program history.
The 149-pounder entered the day ranked second in the country and showed why he's a threat to claim a national title, going a spotless 3-0 that included wins over fifth-ranked Enkhbold Sukhbaatar of Northwest Tech (1-0 decision) in the semi-finals and fourth-ranked Kendon Lee (7-4 decision) of NEO in the finals.
"When you are around Austin, you know he's always capable of doing great things. It was a huge win for the program. Not many schools walk away with a district champion, especially wrestling against teams ranked number two and number three in the country," Cole said. "For him to go out and do what he did, I couldn't be happier for him."
Eldredge was just one of a handful of guys who stepped up Saturday to punch their tickets to Council Bluffs as sophomores Benny Hernandez (285), Cameron Young-Leggett (184) and Noah Aziere (165), redshirt freshman Bryce Gfeller (141), and true freshmen Dakota Miller (133), Blayne Harris (125), Matthew Cruickshank (174) and Quentin Jiner (157) all turned in quality performances.
Hernandez, ranked seventh in the country at heavyweight, finished 3-1 on the day and advanced to the finals, finishing as the district runner-up.
The trio of Young-Leggett, Cruickshank and Harris all claimed fourth-place finishes in their respective weight class, while Miller, Gfeller and Jiner all placed fifth.
"I was really happy with how our freshman wrestled. Blayne wrestled a guy we've seen four times in the consolation semis and beat him when we had to. Quentin had some really good wins," Cole said. "Then with Matt, he had a bit of an elbow injury, so we forfeited the third-place match, but overall he competed very well at a weight class he had never been at."
Miller was another T-Bird who suffered an injury Saturday, spraining his knee in his first match of the day against Northwest Tech's Munkhbat Bat-erdene. After forfeiting that match and the consolation semi-final, Miller wrestled through the pain in the fifth-place match to earn a 5-4, come-from-behind win over Cowley's Justice Circle.
"We decided, instead of asking for a wildcard and maybe putting ourselves in a bad position, that we needed at least go out and try," said Cole of Miller, currently ranked seventh in the country at 133. "He wasn't himself, obviously, without his shoot-in leg. He trailed most of the match, but to come back and fight through the pain to get the win was big for us."
The available wild card came in handy as Cloud County nominated Aziere to be one of the five wrestlers at the end of the tournament to receive wild cards after he had a controversial sixth-place finish at 165.
"We were wrestling for fifth (the final automatic qualifying spot) and got called for an illegal slam. Our opponent decided not to continue the match and it resulted in an automatic loss for Noah when he was up 2-1," Cole said. "Coaches got together afterwards to vote on five wildcards to give out to guys we feel would bring value to the national tournament and make some noise from our district. Noah fortunately got enough votes to get one of those spots."
Aziere's addition is one Cole said he believes will prove helpful when his team heads to Council Bluffs for the NJCAA Wrestling Champions on March 1-2.
"When you bring nine guys, you start shooting for that top-10 (in team standings)," Cole said. "Noah, Benny and Cameron are three guys who will be able to say they've gone to the national tournament twice for us and that's huge, especially when you're bringing a lot of guys who haven't been there. We can lean on those three to make it feel just like another tournament."