Last weekend, the top-ranked Bulldogs traveled to La Crosse, Wisconsin to compete in one of the biggest national wrestling tournaments in the country, The Clash. 

Fueled by a 3-0 outing from sophomore Tycho Carmichael and all-tournament performances from freshmen Jake Knight and Cody Trevino, the Bulldogs took home third place honors out of the 32 team field.

The event began Friday with the qualifying rounds; the 32 teams were divided into four brackets of eight teams. The Bulldogs went undefeated through three duals and cruised to a first place finish in their preliminary group.

“We outplaced some nationally ranked teams so at that point it was all about climbing higher and higher,” said Knight.

Knight wanted to ensure the tempo remained high in his matches.

“Just getting my attacks in and pushing the pace helped out a lot,” said Knight.

On day two, The Bulldogs were placed into the top group along with St. Michael-Alberville and Hasting of Minnesota and Joliet Catholic of Illinois. 

The Bulldogs were defeated in their first two duals, but responded positively with a win over Joliet Catholic to claim third.

“We wrestled two really good teams, so it wasn’t like we were wrestling all that bad. We bounced back well by winning that third dual so I’m proud of our guys for that,” said Trevino.

Coach Dan Knight had nothing but positive things to say about the way the team performed, including the fact that this was the highest finish for the Bulldogs in the seven years they attended.

This young Bulldog team has shown tons of local domination, winning MAC duals by 30, 60 and even 84 points, and now they’re doing it all on bigger stages.

Up next for the Bulldogs is a dual meet against Assumption, then their home invitational.

“We follow that up with our 16 team, 2 day home invitational, starting Friday at 4pm. Our mindset really doesn’t change. We want to compete to the best of our ability and if our group of kids does that we should have a good shot at winning our home invite,” said Dan Knight.

The Bulldogs will continue to ride this high wave of confidence throughout the season.

“We know we belong with the top teams of the state,” said Jake Knight.