Lions qualify eight to State, win District Title
by Brandon Leonard [email protected] · February 20th, 2020


Just a few days after falling short of qualifying for the 2020 Class 3A State Dual Tournament, the Linn-Mar wrestling team bounced back in a big way. The Lions crowned six district champions, qualified eight wrestlers to the Class 3A Traditional State Tournament and won their district meet in the process. Doug Streicher's team appears to be peaking at the right time.

The Lions five ranked wrestlers took care of business as planned as Brandon O'Brien, Bryce Parke, Abass Kemokai, Tate Naaktgeboren and Ryan Plummer all scored victories in their weight classes while 220 pounder Luke Gaffney wrestled lights out and won his weight class as well. Samuel Gisaya placed second at 132 pounds after a dominant wrestle-back run, while Hikaru Carolin was a runner-up at 145 pounds to punch their tickets to State.

Linn-Mar tallied 224.5 team points as they edged runner-up North Scott by just five points.

Class 3A will kick off the 2020 State Tournament on Thursday morning at 9 a.m.