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By Jim Wieners

Three high schools in the Francis Howell School District, St. Charles County, took a large share of medal finishes and nearly doubled the number of district wrestling individual champions last Friday-Saturday at the Class Four, District Two champ-ionships at Hazelwood Central High.

Francis Howell Central will go to Columbia, this Thursday-Saturday at Mizzou Arena, with 11 out of 14 wrestlers, which is the most by any school in Class Four State. Howell Central won District Two with 212 points, 48 more than runner up Howell High, who will send eight and 89 more than third-place Howell North, who will send six. The Howell Schools won nine weight class champions – Howell Central won five and Howell High won three – and the number of state qualifies combined (25) is more than the eight Suburban North Conference schools combined (22)

McCluer North, fourth in District Two (112 behind Howell Central), will send the largest representation of wrestlers from the Suburban North to state (five) and Stars’ head coach Jake Lapinski was happy with the teams preparation for last weekend’s tournament and credit the coaching staff for two weeks of preparation.

“They wrestled real well overall,” Lapinski said, because “we practiced real well all week. We’ve been up and down all week (but) I think we got the kids that can wrestle in state.” The Stars will send senior Kyle Gerringer (103 pounds, 30-9, third in districts), sophomore Curtis Peebles (119, 28-10, District runner up), senior Willie Essex (125, 28-11, district runner up), junior Patrick Whitner (29-11, fourth in districts) and senior Lamar Woods (189, 28-14, third in districts).

Two schools, HAZELWOOD CENTRAL and HAZELWOOD EAST will each send four to Mizzou Arena this Thursday-Saturday and each will send two district champions. Winning district titles at home for Hazelwood Central are junior Bryan Williams (145, 27-10) and senior Julian Smith (215, undefeated at 42-0). Hazelwood East’s district winners are senior Meldrick Woods (160, 41-1) and junior Nicholas Bolden (285, 30-9)

Other state qualifiers for Hazelwood Central include junior DuShawn Fisher (152, 32-6, third in districts) and junior Nick Jordan (140, 33-9, fourth in districts) Other Hazelwood East state qualifiers include senior Terrion Watson (103, 21-5, district runner up) and senior Eugene Dunbar (171, 33-5, third in districts).

HAZELWOOD WEST will send junior Antoine White (103, 28-5, district runner up) and sophomore Mike Wallace (130, 12-18, fourth place). RIVERVIEW GARDENS will send two third place finishers in districts, juniors Timothy Jackson (125, 34-2) and Larry Pulliam (130, 15-6). McCLUER will send senior Eric Jones (189, 13-6, fourth in districts.

TRINITY CATHOLIC will send four to the Class One State Meet this Thursday-Saturday at Mizzou Arena from District One, last Friday-Saturday at Whitfield High. That includes a district champion, freshman Michael Taylor (103, 27-2), a district runner up, senior Garrett Beckham (145. 21-2) and a pair of fourth-place finishers, senior Marquis West (112, 19-5) and senior Dan Gehrhart (189, 22-10).

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