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Bobby Crabtree of Chillicothe battled his way to three wins in five bouts and a fifth-place finish in the 2005 MSHSAA Championships state wrestling tournament. His 39 wins on the season are the third-m ost in a single year by a Chillicothe wrestler, behind Wyatt Pickering's 41 and 40.

(C-T file photo / Paul Sturm)

COLUMBIA - For the first time since 1997, two Chillicothe Hornets wrestlers returned home from Columbia and MSHSAA Championships state tournament with medals Saturday.

Senior 189-pounder Keith Minnis and 112-pound sophomore Bobby Crabtree each captured fifth place in their respective weights. Minnis won four times in six state-tourney bouts, Crabtree took three of five bouts. They were among a five-wrestler state contingent for coach Dave Kinen's Hornets in 2005. Of the others, sophomore 135-pounder Preston Mathews split four bouts, while senior 145-pounder Michael Marriott and sophomore 125-pounder Dustin Murray went 1-2.

"You always feel good about bringing home any medal when you take kids to state," Kinen commented Sunday. "Unless you end up winning it, you always hope for a better medal, but there are a lot of very good wrestlers there."

By virtue of winning his first two bouts Thursday and Friday mornings, Crabtree clinched a medal, technically making him the first Chillicothean to do so since Michael Wilson took fourth at Class 1 215 pounds two years ago. He claimed fifth-place honors with a 6-4 decision over Ahmed Shalabi of Class 2 state champion Platte County, to whom he had lost during the regular season.

When Minnis decisioned Jerad Gentry of Savannah 7-3 in his fifth-place bout Saturday afternoon, that meant Chillicothe had a medalist duo for the first time since 1997. Wyatt Pickering, in the second of his four-straight trips to state, finished second at 145 pounds eight years ago and Lendy Copple, in the last of his four state appearances, was third at 112.

Crabtree finished the season with a team-best 39-5 record, the second-consecutive year he's topped the Hornets in wins. He became just the 12th Hornet ever to have at least 30 wins in a year and just missed joining legendary two-time state champ Pickering in the 40-win "club." Pickering went 41-0 as a senior in 1998-99 after finishing 40-1 as a junior. Crabtree's 39 wins shuffles Wilson down to fourth place in the CHS all-time season wins list with 35. With 67 career wins now in two years, is only 11 away from cracking the school's career top 10. Barring injury, he seems certain to join Pickering as the only members of the CHS 100-win club and, based on his success this season and the number of bouts he had in 2004-05, could make a run at "Pick's" seemingly-unreachable career record total of 149 wins.

The '04-'05 season now history, Kinen said it unfolded much as he had anticipated. "I told the (team) at the start we probably would not have a good dual season (7-3 overall, 3-4 MEC) because we'd be giving away 12 or 18 points most duals with open classes and that's tough to overcome," he stated Sunday. "I told 'em we're working toward the postseason, to make sure each of our wrestlers was at his best come district and state time, when it matters most."

That effectively happened as the five state qualifiers was the largest CHS contingent since 1994 and three or four others missed advancement to Columbia by one district win. "Five of the seven kids we took to the Mizzou camp last summer went to state," the coach pointed out. "Some of them did some freestyle wrestling during the summer. "That says a lot about what working in the offseason can do for your development."

Chillicothe's Keith Minnis used aggressiveness to propel him to a fifth-place finish in the 2005 MSHSAA Championships Saturday. Minnis won four of his six state wrestling tournament bouts.

(C-T file photo / Paul Sturm)

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