BURLINGTON After having a couple of weeks off thanks to winter break, the Iola wrestling team hit the mats on Saturday at the 28th annual Burlington Wrestling Invitational coming away with sixth place overall including five top-five finishes.
The tournament hosted 24 teams with schools as small as 1A West Elk and as large as 5A McPherson.
Freshman TJ Taylor earned second overall and scored 18 team points while going 3-1.
Taylor won by 5-4 decision in the first round over Jayhawk-Linns Corbin White before beating Eurekas Connor Booth-Hughes by a 7-4 decision in the second round.
In the 106-pound semifinal, Taylor beat Eries Drayton Kennedy by a 9-7 decision to advance to the first place match. It was close, but Caney Valleys Jake Stanton won in an 8-6 decision to land Taylor with silver.
Also finishing second while scoring 20 team points was fellow freshman Trent Jones.
Jones started off with a 4:54 pin of Jayhawk-Linns Treyton Compton and followed that up in the quarterfinal match with a 4-3 win by decision over Fort Scotts Jon Daniels.
In the semifinal round, Jones took down Wamegos Dacotah Lee by an 8-3 decision leading, unfortunately, to a loss in the 145-pound championship match versus Rock Creeks Hunter Nold by a 2-0 decision.
Sophomore Logan Brown suffered his first two losses of the year on Saturday and ended up in fourth place overall in the 285-pound division.
Brown started things off with a 36-second pin of West Elks Kizer Berry and followed that up with a 4:23 pin of Humboldts David Watts.
Brown lost by a 9-2 decision in the semifinal match versus Oskaloosas Chris King and in the third-place match, Brown fell by a 5-2 decision to Mission Valleys Nolan Parker.
Junior Gary Lower ended up fifth with a 3-1 record, scoring 13 team points.
Lower had a bye in round one and lost by pin to McPhersons Kourtney Craig in 2:54 in the quarterfinal.
Lower rebounded by getting three pins in a row to secure fifth place at 220-pounds starting with a 34-second pin of Flint Hills Lucas James followed by a 1:00 pin of Parsons Zach Edwards and a 3:59 pin of Rock Creeks Cameron Stanley.
Senior Elijah Luedke also finished fifth, scoring 12 team points.
Luedke started off with a bye and followed that up with a loss to Mission Valleys Caleb Hinck after a two-minute pin. Luedke got a pin of his own in the next round with a 3:29 takedown of Coffeyvilles Jaden Erne.
