Missouri Military Academy knows it will have a tough wrestling district in less than two weeks.

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For that reason, the Colonels were glad to see some quality competition on their home mats at the MMA Colonels Classic at MMA Field House in Mexico. MMA finished fourth out of 11 schools with 128 points — California beat St. Louis University High School by half a point for first — and had five wrestlers, including Trae Griffiths, Deonte Kerns, Ryan Miles, Evan Corley and Russell Olson, finish in the top three to medal.

Head coach Levi Iman said while the Colonels have some time left before districts at Marceline on Feb. 16-17, they only had their home meet and a tri meet at California left in their regular season schedule. That Class 1 District 3 that MMA is in contains five state-ranked schools — Centralia, Tolton, Brookfield, Marceline and North Callaway — so the Colonels better be ready.

“They call our district the meat grinder,” Iman said. “If you make it through, you have a very good chance at medaling at state. In most of the weight classes you run through, you look at the guys from our district, only four are going to get to go to state, but some of the weight classes have six medalists from last year or six guys that got to go to state.”

Iman said MMA is considered an “underdog” due to the fact it didn’t have any state qualifiers a season ago, but there are several Colonels that have a chance of making it through the grinder. At the top of Iman’s list is the sophomore Griffiths, who leads the Colonels with more than 30 wins and is ranked eighth in the state at his weight class.

Griffiths was one three Colonels to finish as a runner-up on Saturday, taking second at 157 pounds after being pinned by state-ranked Rock Bridge grappler Tyler Abell in a bout between 30-match winners. Iman was glad to see Griffiths face such a tough opponent from Class 4 and hopes to see him perform better on the mat next time as he garners more quality-opponent experience like Abell.

“I was really happy to see Trae Griffiths have a tough match in the finals,” Iman said. “I wish it would have gone differently, but he hasn’t had very many tough matches. That is definitely going to help him out at districts. He has definitely improved and did his homework over the summer.”

Like Griffiths, sophomore Deonte Kerns finished 1-1 to take second at 120. Kerns pinned his opponent in his first match after seemingly being put in a bad position but wasn’t able to reverse the match in his favor the second time around. He is one of five Colonels to reach 20 wins this season, including Griffiths, Miles, Michael Pfeifer and Sam Stevens — who is coming off some injuries.

“This is his second year wrestling,” Iman said. “He has really stepped it up this year. He’s been our varsity 120 all year because he earned that spot. He’s got two or three moves that are not very common. He latched onto them, and he’s making them his own. He likes to get himself into trouble. When he gets into trouble, that’s when he shines. He wants a little bit of pressure on him.”

The junior captain Miles was second at 150 after going 3-1 with three pinfalls. Evan Corley picked up a pinfall in the final period to earn a third-place medal at 175, and Russell Olson took third at 215 after two pinfall victories and close decision losses of 4-0 and 6-3. 

Iman said the day he saw from Miles was encouraging as he is another he has high hopes for when districts arrive. Miles pinned opponents from Class 2 Hallsville and Lutheran St. Charles and Class 3 Parkview before falling to California’s Tristan Balsley in the final round.

“He did really well today,” Iman said. “He had a couple tough matches, but he still pulled it out and took second place.”

Iman added he is hopeful to see his 215-pounder Olson wrestle through districts in his senior season, and his freshman heavyweight Summers, who finished fourth at 285 on Saturday, to have some state experience to kick off his MMA wrestling career.

“This was our only home meet this year so we were just happy to be able to welcome a lot of teams from all over the state for some good competition,” Iman said.