EVANSVILLE — New Palestine sophomore Gunner Butt placed in the IHSAA Boys Wrestling State Finals for the second straight year and three other Hancock County wrestlers finished on the podium Saturday night at the Ford Center.
Butt, a sixth-place finisher in the 106-pound class in 2023, placed fourth in the 126-pound class.
He advanced to Saturday’s competition with a first-round win on Friday, 9-2, over Floyd Central’s Fynn Douglas.
He won his Saturday morning quarterfinal match by sudden victory, 6-4, over Jay County’s Cody Rowles.
In the semifinals, he lost 3-1 to eventual state runner-up Isaiah Schaefer of Evansville Mater Dei, who was ranked No. 1 in the state coming in, and was a two-time state-placer.
“That was a good goal for him, to get to the semis. He wrestled a really tough Mater Dei opponent,” New Palestine head coach Andrew Frey said. “He wrestled a really good match. He had that whole gym on the edge of their seat, it was a really tight match to the very end. He was close to getting to the finals. That was just a good test for Gunner to really solidify and prove where he’s at and to compete well with a top-level dude. He wrestled another top-level guy (for third).”
In the third-place match, Butt lost 3-0 to Brownsburg’s Braylon Reynolds.
Butt finished the season with a 35-7 record.
“Consistent would be a very good word to describe him,” Frey added on Butt’s season. “You know you’re going to get a good match out of him. These last couple of weeks, he’s turned it up a notch, too, and rose to the occasion for the bigger matches. We always talk about peaking at the right time and he’s a good example of that.”
Butt’s sophomore teammate Colin Whetsel picked up a sixth-place finish in the 190-pound class.
He followed up a Friday night 5-2 first-round win over Hobart’s Aleksandar Tatum with a loss by fall in 2:00 to Wabash’s Elias Cressell in Saturday’s quarterfinal round.
In the consolation bracket, he defeated Zionsville’s third-ranked Luke Penola, 8-7, before dropping his fifth-place match 10-1 to Center Grove’s Kaden McConnell, a state runner-up last year.
Whetsel, after getting a late start and having to trim weight after football season, finished the season 25-9.
“You never know what kind of draw you’re going to get in the semi-state or the state tournament,” Frey said of Whetsel. “It seemed like [Colin] got some favorable draws, but he really took advantage of it, too.
“He [rebounded from the quarterfinal loss] and had to wrestle Penola from Zionsville and he really went out and embraced a tough match and got away with an 8-7 win. Kind of like Gunner, he rose to the occasion. They are both great competitors and they like to compete.”
Eastern Hancock freshman Bradyn Volz finished sixth in the 113-pound class.
Volz won by technical fall (18-2) in 5:08 on Friday over Lake Central’s Mario Orueta.
On Saturday, he was defeated 9-3 in a quarterfinal round match by Delta’s Ayden Bollinger, who was still unbeaten on the season when he wrestled Volz. Bollinger ended up third in the weight class.
He bounced back with a 4-2 consolation round victory over Penn’s Brady Harper.
In the fifth-place match, he lost by fall in 2:38 to Crown Point’s Gavin Lewis.
Volz finished the season with a 36-4 record.
All four of his losses were to state-placers, which included a regular-season loss to Greenfield-Central’s Jett McGuire, at 120, and a semi-state loss to Roncalli’s Blake Getz, who finished seventh.
He’s the school’s third state-placer and first since Keith Oliver finished sixth in 2002. Kent Colclazier was a state runner-up in 1986.
He’s the first freshman in school history to win a sectional, regional and qualify — and place — at the state finals.
“I was so happy with the way he wrestled and the way he competed,” Eastern Hancock head coach Sam Pfaff said of Volz. “He never let the lights and the show of it all effect him. He was dialed in every match and ready to wrestle. He treated that Friday match just like it was a Tuesday night dual and had a couple of accomplishments because of that.”
G-C’s McGuire, a sophomore, placed seventh in the 120-pound class.
McGuire, after beating Delta’s Kaid Jackson, 4-2, on Friday — in a rematch of the Hoosier Heritage Conference final — he faced eventual state champion Charlie LaRocca of Center Grove. He lost 9-1 to LaRocca, who won a state title for the second straight year.
In the consolation round, McGuire dropped a 1-0 decision to Zionsville’s Tommy Frazier, who he had beaten at the semi-state.
He faced another familiar foe in the seventh-place match, Franklin Central’s Richard Rogers.
McGuire lost to Rogers in a regular-season dual and the sectional final, but beat him in the regional championship.
He evened his record to 2-2 against Rogers with a 7-2 victory.
McGuire finished up his season with a 31-7 mark.
“It’s hard to beat a good guy several times,” Greenfield-Central coach Josh Holden said of McGuire having multiple rematches at the state tournament. “To beat the Delta kid the third time in a row, who is probably a top-eight kid in the state, it’s tough to beat a good kid three times in a row, but I think that says a lot about the schedule we wrestle.
“We’re seeing these top-eight kids throughout the year and you’re going to have to beat them a couple of times. We wrestle Franklin Central in a dual and we wrestle them all the way through the tournament, sectional, regional, semi-state and state. We saw the Zionsville kid at semi-state. Some of it is the road you take … We just have a tough area and Jett did a great job.”
