{"id":44064,"date":"2019-02-25T08:02:57","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T14:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=44064"},"modified":"2019-02-25T08:13:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T14:13:17","slug":"ball-earns-third-trip-to-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=44064","title":{"rendered":"Ball earns third trip to nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The No. 10 ranked Fort Hays State wrestling team competed at the Super Region IV Tournament on Saturday (Feb. 23), hosted by Lindenwood University. Junior Brandon Ball<\/a> (141 pounds) secured his third-consecutive trip to the NCAA Division II National Championships. Sophomore Marty Verhaeghe<\/a> (165 pounds) and Aryus Jones<\/a> (174 pounds) each captured a fourth-place finishes. Seniors Ryne Cokeley<\/a> (149 pounds) and Micquille Robinson<\/a> (184) both earned fifth-place finishes.

No. 1 ranked Brandon Ball<\/a> made easy work of his regional title as he began his day with a fall (2:50) over James Loi of Kentucky Wesleyan. Ball then earned another fall after pinning Caleb Osborn (Truman) in 3:58. In the semifinals, Ball defeated Danny Swan of Lindenwood with a commanding 12-3 major decision, punching his ticket to nationals with one match to spare. The Great Bend, Kan. native went on to defeat Nate Keim (Central Oklahoma) with a narrow 3-2 decision and improved his undefeated season to 24-0 on the year.

Marty Verhaeghe<\/a> started his first regionals appearance with a bye in the first round. Verhaeghe was then defeated by Dan Fillipek of McKendree in a 5-3 decision. He then rattled off three straight victories on the back side of the bracket with a 17-2 technical fall over Charley Genisio of Drury, a fall (1:43) over Zach Taylor (Truman) and a nifty 7-5 sudden victory over Wyatt Jordan of Central Oklahoma to earn a spot in the consolation championship. Verhaeghe suffered a narrow 7-6 decision defeat as the hands of No. 5 ranked Tyler Harrington of Maryville, missing a trip to nationals by one place.

Aryus Jones<\/a> defeated Vin Kriegshauser (Truman) in the first round with a 16-0 technical fall in the first period. Jones was then defeated by Matt Pratt of Maryville by fall (4:52) before defeating Angelo Talabert (Kansas Wesleyan) with a 19-0 technical fall in the second round of the consolation side of the bracket. He then picked up two more wins after defeating Dylan Komperda (Drury) with a 6-1 decision and then defeated Nate Panagakis of Newman in an 8-5 decision to earn a spot in the consolation championship. The Junction City, Kan. native was then defeated by Matt Pratt again in a 14-6 decision in the third-place match.

Ryne Cokeley<\/a> began his day with a commanding pin in the first round (1:47) over Robert Otero of Ouachita Baptist. Cokeley then fell victim to a 2-0 decision at the hands of No. 10 ranked Gavin Londoff (Lindenwood) in the quarterfinals. On the back side, Cokeley received a bye in the second round before defeating Daide Agnew of Central Missouri with a strong 21-6 technical fall. The Eudora, Kan. native was then defeated by Brik Filippo (Central Oklahoma) in a 10-5 decision before earning fifth-place on a medical forfeiture by Gavin DeWitt of Maryville.

Micquille Robinson<\/a> received a bye in the first round of the 184-pound weight class before being defeated by Bailey Kelly of Maryville in a 7-5 decision. Robinson began the back side of the bracket with another bye. He then defeated Shane Gallagher (Truman) with a dominating 16-2 major decision. In the consolation semifinals, Robinson was defeated by No. 10 ranked Colton Clingenpeel (Lindenwood) by decision (8-1). The Wichita, Kan. native earned his fifth-place finish by medical forfeit of Dominique Hampton (Central Missouri).

Brandon Ball<\/a> will now have about two weeks to prepare for the NCAA Division II National Championships (March 8-9) in Cleveland, Ohio. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION The No. 10 ranked Fort Hays State wrestling team competed at the Super Region IV Tournament on Saturday (Feb. 23), hosted… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7349,784],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-wrestling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/brandonball.jpg?fit=300%2C169","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44066,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064\/revisions\/44066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}