Barton Wrestling places three at NJCAA South Central District; Chavez earns wild card national bid #GoBarton

Competing for the first time in two months, the Barton Community College wrestling team came away with three placings including one wild-card national qualifier as the Cougars displayed a 10th place team finish in Saturday's NJCAA South Central District Championships held in Colby, Kansas.

Dawson Chavez earned the lone national qualifying spot benefitting by one of the two wild card berths following his seventh-place finish in the 149 division. Ayston Perez fell just short of a qualifying bid with a seventh-place finish while Jonah Clarke concluded the placings finishing eighth in the 184 division.

Chavez will begin preparation for the NJCAA Championships held March 4-5 at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Opening his day on the tough side of a 4:11 fall to Neosho County's Morgan Potts, Chavez regrouped with a bye and 17-7 major decision over Jamarius Koshko of Labette locking himself into an eighth-place finish or better. The freshman's hopes of an automatic national bid took a slight turn dropping an 11-2 major decision to Kayson Kenney of Carl Albert State in the consolation round of three. Chavez secured his seventh-place finish edging Colby's Eric Cain in a 10-7 decision, but unable to challenge for the national qualifying spot due to a previously loss to sixth place finisher Kenny of Carl Albert State. Chavez obtained his national spot accepting one of two wild cards given out by the participating coaches voting.

Dropping his quarterfinal match to eventual sixth place finisher and No. 4 ranked Micah Lieberman of Labette in a 5-2 decision, Perez would advance to the consolation third round with a bye before dropping a tight 6-5 decision to Babatunde Oroye of Neosho County. Slipping into the seventh-place bout Perez received a forfeit victory over Colby's Jared Volcic however like Chavez unable to challenge for the national qualifying spot due to quarterfinal loss to Lieberman.

Barton's final placer would be Clarke following a 1-3 day. Opening with a bye, Clarke suffered a third period fall to Logan Allen of Neosho County. The freshman rebounded with his lone victory producing Barton's lone back pinning of the day over Colby's James Sharp in the second period. Clarke would drop his next two matches suffering a 21-3 tech fall to Darin Neal of Labette before settling for eighth falling in the first period to Davis Lee of Northwest Kansas Tech.

Izaiah Del Valle saw his Barton career end dropping both his matches in a 12-4 major decision to sixth place finisher Samajay Alboyd of Pratt and falling in the first period to fifth place finisher Hunter Gonzales of Northwest Kansas Tech.