The 2024- 25 high school wrestling slate is beginning to ramp up and Guthrie celebrated the beginning of the season with its annual intrasquad competition, the Blue & White Dual.
Bluejay boys and girls wrestlers from high school, middle school and the Team Guthrie Youth Wrestling Club competed against one another as members of either the Blue team or White team. Fourteen matches were held in total, with the White team coming away with the win, 36-25.
The first two matches of the night featured membersofTeamGuthrie. Axel Freudenberger defeated Callen Hardin by tech fall in the 55-pound bout, and Casen Ambriz won by decision (13-7) over Cannon Phillips in the 52-pound to give the Blue team an early 8-0 lead.
Next up was the middle school girls’ matches, which kicked off with team White’s Lana Vaughn defeating Gabby Kirk by decision (13-0) for the first white win of the evening. Bailey Hardin followed that up with a win by decision (10-4) over Eva Luna Ellis in the 117.
Jaxton King nabbed another win for the Blue team to start the middle school boys events. He took down Garrett Reese by decision (10-7) in the 112-pound match, then Malcolm Christian won the 150-pound match for the White team by decision (6-2) over Levi Dennis. Zekia Akkerson rounded out the middle school events by pinning Kyler Bradford in the heavyweight bout.
Team White’s Ilamae Smith got the high school girls’ matches started by pinning Kaidence Blevens in the 145, followed by Payton Edberg defeating Khloe Lasenbarry in the 155 by decision (13-3) for the Blue team.
Four high school boys’ matches were held Monday night, while the event itself was coached by a couple of the upperclassmen. The 150-pound match saw Aydin Hardin win by tech fall over Trevor Graves for the White team, then Urijah Sisk picked up a decision win for team Blue in the 113 over Khonor Martin.
Kaleb Farrer won by decision (19-11) over Kyler Wilder in another 150-pound event, and Thomas Jirous took the 144 for the Blue team by decision (12-0) over Aydin Macy.
For the final match of the evening, Shepherd Hardin and Slader Gibson from Team Guthrie faced off in what was dubbed the night’s “main event,” and that it was. Gibson came rocketing out of the gate to take a 14-0 lead for the Blue team at the end of the first period, just one point shy of the tech fall victory. That was until Hardin completely turned the tables in the second period and got Gibson on his back for the pin and the automatic victory, winning it for team White.
The Bluejays got some good work in before official duals begin this month, starting with the Perry Dual on Thursday, Dec. 5, which will be hosted at GHS.