WRESTLING CELEBRATION: Mules honor founding coach, get pair of wins as they mark 50 years on mat

On a night when the man who gave birth to the Poplar Bluff wrestling program, Terry Smith, was honored with induction to the program’s ring of honor, the Mules played host to Notre Dame and Kennett and made sure to put on quite the exclamation point to further illustrate how important the sport has become in town.

The Mules routed Notre Dame (Cape Girardeau) 62-0 and then slowly cruised away at the middle and heavy weights to roll past Kennett 46-24 for the dominant sweep.

“It was a great atmosphere and great to see all those former wrestlers in the crowd,” Poplar Bluff head coach Kelton Thompson said. “It’s nice to let coach Smith know how much we appreciate him and what he did to get the program going. Overall, it was a great night and we hope to do this yearly and start a tradition.”

Kennett definitely brought the competitive juice to the Poplar Bluff mat as they battled early while Caden Hambrick won at 126 pounds with a first-round pin and Garrett Dearborn followed that up with an 11-4 decision at 132.

Dace Wisdom followed those up with a first-round pin at 144 while Lucas Robertson continued his tear up the career win record books with a first-round pin at 150 to give the Mules a 21-12 lead.

Jack Ernest followed that up with a second-round pin at 157 pounds, Logan Hite won with a second-round pin himself at 165 and Daine Dugas, at 175, held on for a 4-2 win in one of the more competitive matches on the evening.

Then Bryce Dobbs took care of business at 190 pounds with a majority decision win, 18-6, and he was followed by Hudson Matthews, who recorded a first-round pin at 215.

All told, the Mules recorded four pins in 90 or less seconds.

“We are really green at lower weights and those guys are trying to find their footing,” Thompson said. “We had also two new guys and Hite went to 165 and Daine at 175 to get ready for districts. Dobbs wrestled his first varsity match and Andre Aguilar wrestled his first match (285). Our guys were a little tighter than usual probably because we were wrestling at home — we don’t wrestle at home much.

“They wrestled hard and maybe their nerves got to them a little bit.”

Winning matches against Notre Dame on the mat were Hambrick (126 pounds, second-round pin), Dearborn (132, second-round pin), Ernest (157, first-round pin), Dugas (175, 8-6 decision) and Matthews (215, second-round pin). They also recorded five pins.

“We did what we were supposed to do against Notre Dame,” Thompson said. “Daine beat that kid in a close match last year and it was the same thing. We need to clean some stuff in our positioning from both matches and we have to make less mistakes.

“That’s a concern for me and something we will iron out. But we wrestled well overall.”

On the girls side, the Lady Mules beat Notre Dame 18-6 and Kennett 18-12, with all matches decided by forfeit outside of three – one loss in each dual for Poplar Bluff while Zoe Freeman (170 pounds) won her match against Kennett.