Sellers, Esaias, and Meek advance to district tourney

SHENANDOAH – Three Red Oak Tiger wrestlers finished in the top two spots at their sectional meet Saturday, advancing to districts.

Geoff Sellers (112 pounds) started the meet as the number-one seed in his weight-class, with regular season wins in at least one previous match against each of his potential opponents in the bracket.

Sellers advanced to the championship against Creston's Jacob Johnson where he was pinned in the first period.

He had to wrestle one more match to earn his spot at second place, as he pinned Shenandoah/Farragut's Joseph Heitshusen with 12 seconds remaining in the match.

Sellers will move on to his first district tournament with an overall record of 27-15.

Cole Meek (145 pounds) and Seth Esaias (171 pounds) each won their weight-class at the sectional tournament.

Meek only wrestled two matches to claim his title as he pinned Clarinda's Chuck Appel in the semi-finals before defeating John Young of Creston 11-4 in the championship match.

Esaias' path was similar as he pinned Clarinda Academy's Isaac Berry in the semis and pinned Keeton Hulett of Creston in 1:33.

Meek and Esaias will go to the district tournament Saturday with records of 28-5 and 36-2 respectively.

“Today went about how we were expecting it to go,” Red Oak Wrestling Head Coach Tom Van Dyke said.

Districts will be held at Harlan Saturday at noon. The top two wrestlers of each class advance to the state tournament.

As a team, the Tigers finished fifth of six teams scoring 122 points.

Creston took the sectional team championship scoring 258.5 team points, finishing with six champions and 11 wrestlers advancing on to districts.

Harlan was second as a team scoring 199.