MMA at MMA Colonels Classic Photo Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe had no idea that was coming,\u201d Iman said. \u201cWe really appreciate the guys doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iman said this is the biggest senior class that these MMA coaches have had. He said this is also the first time the coaches have had a large senior group through all four years in high school so it was a significant day for the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kerns joined the MMA wrestling program in middle school and has grown to the team\u2019s No. 1 wrestler this season. He won by technical fall against a Class 4 opponent from St. Louis University High School and then won by an 8-7 decision against California\u2019s Jackson Barnard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really coming into his own this season,\u201d Iman said. \u201cWe knew he was going to. He had gotten a lot better over the summer. He came back in ready to go. This season, he keeps hitting it hard every day in the room. It shows when we come out to tournaments like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iman said the tournament brought a good challenge to MMA with the 16 schools coming from all four classes in the state, especially since this is the team\u2019s last action before districts on Feb. 20-21 at Lafayette County in Higginsville.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love hosting this one because we don\u2019t just focus on Class 1 or Class 2 teams,\u201d Iman said. \u201cThere were several matches that I think we’re going to see again at state in a few weeks. We didn\u2019t go in looking to win this. We just wanted to have some good mat time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mason Quarles is another senior for MMA this season, and he went 3-2 at 157. Iman said 157 is a \u201cstacked weight class,\u201d and Quarles competed well, doing well during his matches to give him some positive momentum for hopefully a good district tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iman said Josiah Emminger at 285 could be another standout at districts, and James Grace could be as well after coming the closest to another MMA medal as he finished fourth at 144 after going 4-2. Those two losses happened against last year\u2019s Class 4 state runner-up Hickman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did look pretty good,\u201d Iman said. \u201cHe had a couple rough matches, but I think it\u2019s going to pay off for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the Colonels buckle down to prepare for districts, Iman said the present from his seniors must be treated with care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to go on the wall tonight,\u201d Iman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jeremy Jacob, Sports Editor The Missouri Military Academy wrestlers have benefitted from the tutelage of their coaches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-479464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}