Nord, Kifer win at Jimmie Invite

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Michael Nord and Dillon Kifer continued their dominating seasons on Saturday.

In their final home meeting of the season, the two Jamestown College underclassmen went a combined 7-0 to win individual titles at the 8-team Jimmie Invite.

Nord, the former 4-time state champ at Lisbon High School via Enderlin, was particularly devastating as he rolled through the 165-pound division to the tune of four straight pins, and none of his four opponents could even get out of the first period. In fact, only Dickinson State’s Jason Armitage could get into a second minute. Nord’s other three matches took 100 seconds or less.

Nord missed most of the first half of the season getting his grades in order, but has been back full time since Christmas and been lights out.

“Michael is a clutch wrestler. Depending on what’s needed in a given match he steps up and does what needs to be done,” said JC head men’s coach C.J. Campbell. “He has a winning mentality. He’s not used to losing and he’s a handful for anybody.”

Kifer needed just three matches to carve up the 141-pound field. He posted consecutive falls to start then won a competitive 8-6 decision over South Dakota State’s Will James in the final, continuing a strong freshman season for the Little Falls, Minn., product.

“Dillon has surprised us all from the first meet all the way through now just with how consistent he has been for us to the point now where it’s not a surprise anymore because of how he’s been,” Campbell said. “His results speak for themselves. He’s been so good and so consistent all season.”

As a team, the Jimmies finished with the second-most pins on the day with 10. Only Montana State-Northern had more. It was another building-block for Campbell’s team, which starts six freshmen out of the 10 lineup spots

“A lot of what we’ve been working on in practice: getting off the bottom, being aggressive on your feet, I thought we did a lot of good things in those regards and those are the things that are going to take us to the next level,” Campbell said.

Coby Horner and Sam Brown each earned third-place honors for the Jimmies.

Horner’s only loss at 133 was a narrow 3-2 tiebreaker setback to SDSU’s Eric Orozco. Otherwise, the junior from Fircrest, Wash., went 3-0.

Brown, in the middle of a steady senior campaign, was also nearly perfect. The Colstrip, Mont., native went 3-1 with the lone loss to Chase Burns of Great Falls, 1-0.

Jaykob Miller had a busy 5-match day at 157, collecting three wins.

Johnathon Gonzalez (165), Antonio Borden (141) and heavyweight Steve Holliman each went 2-2. Jevon Schnaubert was 2-3 at 149.

Edward Wilson (133), Joe Wilkins (141), Austin Were (184) and former Blue Jay heavyweight Tyler Wibstad each had one win.

The Jimmies are back in action on Tuesday with a dual at the University of Mary.

“Overall, we’ve had a good season. The end results have not been ideal from a coach’s perspective, but the progress and the process it takes to build to the point where we need to be, we’ve made some really nice strides,” Campbell said. “We still have work to do. We have regionals coming up and I feel like we have the chance to make an impact there if we can continue to work hard and improve individually and as a collective unit.”

Sun sports editor Dave Selvig can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by e-mail at daves@jamestownsun.com

Tags: college sports, sports, jimmies, wrestling