Six Mount Si High School wrestlers traveled to compete at the Tacoma Dome for the KingCo State Championships on Feb. 19 and 20.

Mason Marenco, a junior, placed sixth in weight class 152 and Andrew Harris, a senior, placed sixth at weight class 220 at state. Spencer Marenco, Kurtis Olsen, and Brennan Dalgleish participated as well, but were not able to advance to the top 8 rounds on Saturday.

In the last regional tournament Mount Si placed fourth as a team with five of the athletes placing high enough to compete at state. Duncan Harrison placed fifth at the regional event, narrowly missing the state cutoff, but qualifying to be the team alternate for the event.

Tony Schlotfeldt, head wrestling coach at Mount Si, said that while the team didn’t quite reach their projected results they were able to place in the top half of attendees.

“Our projection was three out of the five would get through and we were hoping for better, but it didn’t work out for some of those guys,” he said. “Team wise we were probably around 28th out of 60 some odd teams.”

Mason Marenco lost to a Bethel wrestler who was the eventual runner-up in his weight class. He then won his next two matches before being eliminated by a wrestler from Mead.

Harris was in the semi-finals in the championship bracket and lost to a wrestler he beat the day before.

“He was winning by about three or four points and got thrown with about 20 seconds left and got pinned,” Schlotfeldt said.

With his relatively young team Schlotfeldt expects the experience of going to the state championships to have made an impact on the wrestlers and helped motivate them to improve.

“Overall we felt we are still making improvements and we are still pretty young,” he said. “So really most of them are coming back except for two. We will continue progressing. They still have a lot of potential that we haven’t tapped into yet. The future is looking good.”

In looking back at the season, Schlotfeldt is happy with the success they had despite their small numbers.

“We felt in reviewing the season we are happy with what we are able to accomplish as a smaller team,” he said. “We did well in our normal tournament schedule, usually placing top 5 or better. We kind of maintained where we were at from previous years. We were happy to get five wrestlers to state. That’s the most we have gotten to state in about seven years.”

For comparison, Schlotfeldt pointed out that Lake Stevens, the team that won the tournament, had only three more participants than Mount Si.

To qualify for state, the wrestlers placed within the top four in their last regional tournament. In each of their weight classes, Mason Marenco and Andrew Harris won regionals, with Dalgleish, Spencer Marenco and Olsen all placing third.

“We are proud of our guys,” Schlotfeldt said. “They worked hard this season and it was a pretty successful season for them. I’m looking forward to next year.”