On Feb. 17, the Raider Wrestlers did it again and they are headed back to Xcel Energy Center with the hopes of capturing a team state title.

Hastings entered the Section 3AAA tournament as the number one seed, Park of Cottage Grove had the two seed, both teams had a bye in the six team tournament.

In the first round, St. Thomas Academy (STA) earned the third seed, and they took on the six seeded Two Rivers Warriors, defeating them 4924. Eagan had the fourth seed and they went up against the fifth seeded Woodbury Royals. The Royals pulled out the upset winning 42-33. That put STA against Park and Woodbury against Hastings.

Park and STA was a tough, back and fourth battle that ultimately ended with Park winning 44-27, but their opponent was already decided. Hastings manhandled Woodbury dismantling the Royals 62-18.

Hastings and Park is always a fun rivalry and the intensity of wrestling parents is, well, very intense. The stands even received a warning look from the officials just a few matches in. The fans felt there were a few officiating mistakes made, and there was at least two times everyone in the room was confused at what the officials called, but they are the trained officials, so it was dropped very quickly. Thankfully, those calls did not affect the outcome of the matches.

The night was weird for Hastings with the team missing a few key players either due to injury, illness or family matters. Some wrestlers had to wrestle up a weight class for the younger wrestlers to fill in for those that were missing.

Taylon Little Soldier, Donavin Ward and Fletcher Peterson had some of the most exciting and intense matches of the night. Peterson’s match against Woodbury had the Raider fans on their feet, Little Soldier and Ward both had matches come down to the wire. Here are the results of the championship match.

106: Trey Beissel receives a forfeit 113: Blake Beissel wins by major decision 14-0 over Landen Brooks 120: Taylon Little Soldier loses by decision 6-7 to Zack Carr 126: Peyton Erickson loses by fall at 2:58 to Kyler Jubinal 132: Donavin Ward wins by decision 7-4 over Layne Frandrup 138: Jack Bainbridge wins by tech fall 15-0 over Joey Chilton 145: Fletcher Peterson loses by fall at 3:31 to Gunnar Mullen 152: Josh Route wins by tech fall 17-0 over Donovan Early Pinder 160: Creed Peterson wins by tech fall 15-0 over Will Deutsch 170: Aiden Erickson wins by a tech fall of 17-0 over Dylan Richardson.

At this point in the meet, The Raiders were up 33-14 with four matches to go. The most points that can be captured by either team in a win is six, so there was 24 points max left for the taking. That meant, if Rico Cooper won his match in any way, the Raiders would mathematically win the meet with three matches remaining and Cooper did just that.

182: Rico Cooper wins by tech fall 21-3 over Samuel Lankow After Cooper’s win, the Raider bench stayed calm and respectful until the matches were done, a testament to the sportsmanship these kids are taught and expected to uphold by the coaching staff.

195: AJ Jaeger loses by DQ to Alex Carr 220: Austin Leflay receives a forfeit 285: Blake Clemons wins by fall at 1:07 over Doug Sabin Final Team Score: Hastings: 50 Park: 20 With the win, Hastings is headed to the Xcel Energy Center March 2-4. The second is the team tournament and the third and fourth is the individual tournament. The individual section tournament is this Saturday at Two Rivers High School in Mendota Heights. That is an all-day event and we’ll have those results next week.

For now, the Raiders will be joining 1AAA Faribault, 2AAA Apple Valley, 4AAA Stillwater, 5AAA St. Michael Albertville (STMA), 6AAA Waconia, 7AAA Anoka and 8AAA Wilmar at the team state tournament with the first match scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on Mar. 2.

The latest rankings for the state teams are as follows according to the Guillotine.com: 1 -STMA 2 -Waconia 3 -Hastings 7 -Stillwater 9 -Apple Valley 12 -Willmar Not ranked, Faribault who had no ranked teams in their section and Anoka who beat the 10th rank team of Forest Lake. Seeding for state will likely be STMA, Waconia, Hastings and Stillwater as the top four teams. Apple Valley has a great shot to be the fifth seed with Anoka sliding into sixth, Wilmar in seventh and Faribault at eight. That would put Hastings vs Apple Valley for the first Raiders match. This is speculation given the MSHSL has not released the completed brackets as of press time.