Mexico’s minds are set on a team trophy this week at state.

The Bulldogs qualified 10 wrestlers on Saturday on the second day of the Class 2 District 2 tournament that began Friday at Mexico High School. They finished second out of 16 schools with 197.5 points, which was behind Father Tolton’s 217 points, and will compete today and Thursday at Mizzou Arena in Columbia.

Trevor Cole and Grant Walker were district champions at 106 pounds and 190 pounds, respectively; runners-up were Carlos Juarez Ramirez at 113, Logan Hilderman at 126, Kyler Carr at 157 and Brenden Wilson at 165; Travis Shramek was third at 285; and Evan Blair at 120, Brayden Arnold at 132 and Israel Hernandez-Jarquin at 144 were each fourth to snag that last spot in the top four.

Mexico at Districts Photo Gallery

“We knew we had an opportunity to get pretty much everyone through,” head coach Jake Vitale said. “We ended up with 10. Those 10 guys wrestled hard, and nine of them will come back next year.”

Cole finished off all three of his opponents quickly during the weekend. The longest match he had was 1:09 against a top-five kid (Orchard Farm’s Milo Smith) he has wrestled three times, according to Vitale, and the other two were pinned within the first minutes. The freshman takes a 46-0 record into state. 

“I felt like I was going to be dominant,” Cole said. “It’s just a good mindset going into the tournament and just keeping that mindset.”

Cole had many championships and top-three finishes at the youth state and national level prior to joining the high school program. Cole said he has adjusted well to high school thanks to that wealth of experience that has given him a strong mental state, which tells him he should be “going hard the whole time.”

Vitale said Cole has been wrestling since kindergarten and has “tough” practice partners in Juarez Ramirez, Blair and Hilderman. He said Cole goes in as one of the “big dogs” at state in a bracket that will have a lot of freshmen and a returning junior state medalist from Oak Grove. 

“Not a single kid that he’s wrestled in the state of Missouri has made it all six minutes,” Vitale said. “He’s finished every match early.”

Cole said he has adjusted to high school well thanks to that wealth of experience that has given him a strong mental state which helps with the physical on the mat.

Before winning the MMA Colonels Classic two weeks prior, Walker said he had never won a tournament. The senior made it back-to-back championships to set him up nicely in his bracket for state.

Walker said he got some revenge on his last two opponents on Saturday as well, beating Moberly’s Landon Smith via 8-1 decision and Boonville’s Clayton Schuster via 16-1 technical fall. 

“I worked with my coaches a bunch on a game plan,” Walker said. “I was going to keep my distance and use my attack. I did that perfectly in both matches.”

Vitale said Walker has dealt with a shoulder injury this season, which sat him out of a tournament. Winning districts sets Walker up to earn a state medal, Vitale said, because Smith was a top-five kid and Schuster was ranked just outside the top five. 

“For him to get that opportunity and even battling through that injury is really good for him,” Vitale said. “He’s a big leader for us. He leads by example.”

Shramek advances to state for the second time in his career and second straight year. After losing 7-1 in the semifinals to Moberly’s Carter Bloss, who qualified for state, Shramek won by pin and then 16-0 technical fall in the third-place match to end the weekend on a high note once all the nerves were “out of my system.”

This season, Shramek is over 40 wins and credits his better campaign to additional work in the offseason, wrestling with partners such as Walker and Mac Haag, and the good coaching. That all prepared him well for the district tournament.

“For the past two weeks, we’ve been wrestling hard at practice with no tournaments but just straight wrestling in our wrestling room,” Shramek said.

Juarez Ramirez returns to state a third time after being the 106-pound runner-up each of the past two years. He lost in the finals on Saturday to Lutheran St. Charles’ Caleb Dyer in a rematch of last year’s state championship match and had to stop the match multiple times because of a hurt ankle. Vitale said he has “buckled down and wrestled hard” instead of complaining about the injury.

Vitale said Blair “battled back in the bubble match” to win over Moberly’s Gavin Lippelman to qualify for the second time; Arnold wrestled tough kids but qualified for the second time; and Hilderman impressed by beating top-six kid and state qualifier Jason Schutter, of Kirksville, in the semifinals for his second state berth. Carr is a three-time state qualifier that is ranked second in the state, according to Vitale, and he only lost to the No. 1 kid Grant Leininger, of Southern Boone.

Hernandez-Jarquin qualifying for his first state tournament in his third year as a wrestler made Vitale proud and happy he has him for two more years. Wilson qualifies as a freshman and beat a top-six kid and state qualifier in the semifinals, Father Tolton’s Clark Wallis.

“I keep saying (they beat a top-six kid in the state), but they wrestled tough,” Vitale said. “Even these guys that are ranked high, we didn’t back down from them.”

Vitale said he believes a team trophy is within reach and so is Father Tolton after finishing behind them at districts.

“Father Tolton is a very tough team that is coached well and has good wrestlers,” Vitale said. “We get our kids wrestling to their potential, we’ve got an opportunity to knock them off at state. It’s going to take our best effort, but I know our guys are very capable.”