Mark Kirk
What a tournament! From state champions wrestling in the 1st round to a great team race that wasn’t decided until the very end, the 77th Annual Geary Invitational Tournament lived up to its long-lived reputation as one of the most exciting tournaments in the nation.
Edmond North, Stillwater, Collinsville, and Tuttle battled it out for two days, with the outcome not decided until the crucial 2nd place challenge matches. In the challenge matches, it came down to Stillwater and Edmond North.
Stillwater lost their only challenge match at 132 and after Edmond North’s Kody Routledge kept his 2nd place finish with a big 3-1 win, the two teams were tied for the title. It came down to Layton Schneider and the sophomore came through in grand fashion, earning a fall in the 2nd place challenge match at 145 lbs. giving Edmond North five more team points and the team title!
The team championship was, of course, more than just the last match heroics as Edmond North crowned three champions (Hunter Hollingsworth, Jaxson Randall and Oscar Williams) and seven other placers to hold off Stillwater for the second time this season (winning the Kansas City Stampede in December by 1.5 points over Stillwater).
Stillwater also crowned three champions (Cale Hughes, Kael Voinovich and Angelo Ferrari) and led all teams with 12 medalists (2-3rd, 5-4th and 2-5th). Rounding out the Top Five showed Collinsville with champion Cole Brooks and nine other medalists in 3rd place, Tuttle 4th with seven medalists including champions Reese Davis and Harley Andrews and Edmond Memorial (five medalists) and Broken Arrow (seven placers including champion Christian Forbes) tied for 5th.