]Prior to this winter, the Jackson wrestling program never had three siblings all win SEMO Conference championships in the same season until now.
That changed when sisters senior Mallorie Metzger, senior Gracie Metzger and freshman Mollie Metzger — The Three Metzgerteers — each won their weight class in the conference tournament.
The Metzgers did so in dominating fashion as they all three won each of their matches in the tournament via pinfall. Gracie became a two-time conference champion in the 115-pound division, while Mallorie took home the title at 120 and Mollie claimed the 125-pound championship.
“We all wanted to be a part of Jackson history, and we all stand out a lot more being sisters,” Mallorie said. “It’s not every day and you don’t go to a whole lot of places where you see three sisters competing on the same team and accomplishing what we have accomplished so far. Being the first three siblings to win conference titles together in Jackson history makes me really excited.
“That’s probably the best thing that’s happened over anything tonight — it’s a lot to take in. I was so excited going into the conference tournament and that’s all I could think about, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to be the first trio of sisters to win conference.’”
In the bout for the 115-pound conference title, Gracie (21-5) pinned her opponent Hillsboro freshman Aubrey Melber (15-10) one minute into the second period to finish her career as a two-time SEMO Conference Champion.
Metzger recorded her two other pinfalls against Windsor junior Delaney Rapp (19-16) at five minutes, four seconds in the semifinals and pinned Dexter junior Emily Barrett (2-4) in 50 seconds in the quarterfinals.
As for Gracie’s triplet sister Mallorie (27-2), she only had to wrestle in two matches due to receiving a bye in the quarterfinal round. Neither of Mallorie’s two matches lasted past the first period as she pinned Hillsboro junior Heaven Webb with 11 seconds left till the second period for her first SEMO Conference title.
After Gracie and Mallorie both won their championships, they stood back and watched their younger sister Mollie (17-9) accomplish the same feat. Mollie even recorded the quickest pinfall of the tournament for Jackson in the 125-pound conference championship match with a 44-second pin over North County junior Memory Raker (16-12).
Like Gracie, Mollie also had three matches after not receiving a bye in the opening round. Metzger first pinned Park Hills Central sophomore Tessa Mosier (13-16) at 1:36 in the quarterfinal match, followed by a pin over Potosi junior Harley Vance (17-8) in the semifinals.
“It’s a big deal to me for all three of us to win a conference title together because it’s the only chance we would’ve gotten, and it was really great because it was all back-to-back,” Mallorie said. “I got to see Gracie win — they both got to see me win, and then we got to see our little sister win. It was a really big moment for all of us. The other girls could’ve been just as ready, but we came out there, wrestled and just had fun. We just went after it.”
Two other Indians for the girls team also medaled as 135-pound senior Kassie Hodges (4-4) pinned Ste. Genevieve freshman Ragan Picou (9-11) in the third-place match. In the semifinals, Hodges had fallen to eventual 135-pound conference champion sophomore Addisyn Gasaway (29-4) of Park Hills Central by decision at 2-1.
Jackson junior Joey Collins took fourth overall in the 110-pound division as the Indians scored 109 points as a team to take third in the conference meet behind conference champions Park Hills Central (114 points) and conference runner-ups Sikeston (113).
Moving on to the boys side, Jackson finished second overall with 293 points behind conference champion Hillsboro’s total of 407. While the Indians had two individual conference champions and 11 medalists overall, the Hawks won eight of the 14 weight classes.
Bringing home conference gold for Jackson was the duo of seniors Griffin Horman and Tyler Beyatte, who both currently hold a record of 30-2 overall in their respective weight classes of 190 and 215.
Both wrestlers pinned all of their opponents heading into their championship bouts as Horman beat Hillsboro senior Nicholas Green (15-8) by technical fall with a score of 18-3 for the 190-pound title. This was the second and final conference championship of Griffin’s high school wrestling career.
As for Beyatte, who won the 195-pound SEMO Conference Championship last winter, his title match at 215 pounds lasted all three periods. Tyler was able to shutout Hillsboro junior Hunter Rhodes (8-2), though, via a 5-0 decision for his second-straight conference title.
Two other Jackson wrestlers made their conference championship matches as 285-pound senior Noah Gibson and 113-pound junior Landon Vassalli took second.
Also placing in the top four were freshmen Kade King (24-8) and Kaden Shaw (21-11) at 120 and 106 pounds, respectively. King took third overall while Shaw finished fourth in his class.
Jackson junior Russell Coy, junior Blake Hager, senior Gavin Hicks, sophomore Jacob Milam and junior Jacob Shirrell earned conference medals as well.