Marquette’s Etta Kudej and Amira Perrier shake hands during an MHSAA girls individual wrestling district tournament held in Grayling on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Brandon Van Schyndel)

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Senior High School wrestling team had mixed results at a pair of individual MHSAA high school wrestling regionals held over the weekend.

In a boys Division 2 regional held at Gaylord, three Sentinels boys came oh-so-close, just missing advancement.

But they had two girls who did advance in the girls regional held in Grayling a day later.

All were trying to advance to regionals to be held downstate this weekend, with the goal of reaching the state finals for both boys and girls wrestling scheduled at Ford Field in Detroit on March 6-7.

Here is a roundup of Marquette’s results:

Girls

On Sunday in Grayling, Marquette freshmen Etta Kudej and Amira Perrier competed, and both happened to be in the 110-pound division.

Each advanced to the semifinals in the championship bracket before losing. Perrier downed Lily Jaroneski of Gaylord with a pin at 3:44 before losing to eventual champion Chloe Malone of Grayling in a pin at 2:25.

Kudej had to get through one extra match, opening with a 15-0 tech fall at 2:00 over Marley Buchanan of Tawas, then outpointed Sophia Mendyk of Oscoda 10-6. In the semis, she lost to finalist Bianca Briggs of Newberry in a pin at 1:10.

That put both in the consolation bracket, each needing one more win to advance to the regionals. And they pulled it off, Perrier downing Mendyk 9-3 while Kudej took out Khloey VanHammond of Roscommon with a pin at 4:25.

There they met in the third-place match as Perrier prevailed 8-4, with Kudej still getting fourth place.

“Despite being practice partners and knowing each other’s offense, they had a relatively high-scoring match,” MSHS head coach Brandon Van Schyndel said in an email detailing the result.

There were eight districts not broken down by division, with all top-four finishers winners advancing to a regional, then those top four going onto the state finals at Ford Field in Detroit on March 6-7.

Perrier and Kudej advance to a regional at Cadillac, which will pit wrestlers from their district against one from the Whitehall district.

Boys

On Saturday in Gaylord, the Sentinels boys didn’t get any qualifiers to the regionals, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

MSHS had three wrestlers come within one win of being in a top-four position to advance at an Division 2 district.

Senior Trent Sadler at 190 pounds won his first match 9-8 over Marc DeWildt of Sault Ste. Marie, then lost in the championship bracket semifinals to Colton Smith of Fruitport. In the “blood round,” where the winner advances to the regionals and the loser is out, he had to forfeit due to injury, ending his run.

Junior Harland Dombrowski at 157 also opened with a win, a pin at 1:23 of Ludington’s Patrick Carsten, before losing to Jason Cranick of Gaylord in another pin at 26 seconds.

In the consolation bracket, Dombrowski defeated David Nelson of Coopersville 7-2, then lost to Chayson Eberspeadker of Greenville in a pin at 1:29 in the blood round.

And senior Antanie Villarello at 144 suffered a similar fate. He lost his opener to Jeffery Summerland of Gaylord in a pin at 1:22, then defeated Kingston Berube of Escanaba with a 16-0 technical fall at 5:00. Then he lost to Brady Steffes of Coopersville in a 17-0 tech fall to end his run.

Story contents based on email received from Marquette head coach Brandon Van Schyndel and an examination of the MHSAA website at mhsaa.com. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net