Jeremy Karll

“Right after (third at last year’s state tournament) my coaches were like, ‘Well, we’re not going to shoot for second, so might as well go for the championship,’ ” Christensen said. “I progressed and got a lot better. Wrestling both of my coaches, they’re great partners. I just got a lot better and…

“We got five kids into the finals, but we were still the underdog in most of those matches,” Winner Area head coach Spencer Novotny said. “I’m happy with the effort. I think a big thing for us was that we came back through and we didn’t get a bunch of seventh and eighth-place finishes.”

These four area wrestlers are having breakout campaigns this year.

WINNER -- Class A No. 3 Winner survived a five-set match on Thursday, as the Warriors took down Kimball/White Lake. Set scores were 18-25, 25-13, 25-18, 20-25 and 15-9.

BROOKINGS -- Canistota/Freeman and Britton-Hecla each had chances to go up two scores throughout the game, yet giveaways kept each within striking distance.

“I thought we battled real good in the first half,” Adam Nelson said. “... Ultimately, foul trouble got the best of us. One call changed the basketball game. That foul on Drayton changed the basketball game for us.”

“I think that second half showed we can play with anybody in this tournament,” said Brady Fritz. “Coming into the tournament, we felt like people thought, ‘Oh, Winner’s going to come in here and they’re not going to be able to compete with teams like Dakota Valley.’ But I think after that, we…

Winner opens the state tourney against Dakota Valley today.

“You definitely want to make sure you get the first one,” Mitchell coach Cole Knippling said. “You don’t want to be the eighth-place team. I’m proud how we did it, to have some seniors step up and have awesome shooting games.”

Although COVID-19 is still a looming threat and a mask mandate is in place at Huron Arena, the first day of the tournament was loud and lively. Concerns over whether the tournament would be postponed or canceled were replaced with concerns of whether a team would win or lose.