The Trapper contingent for this year’s NJCAA National Championships put up a fight in Council Bluffs, Iowa, but fell short of the medal round.

Gus Harrison wore Trapper black at 149 pounds. Teammate Ryker Blackburn went to the mat on the 197-pound bracket.

The men are second-year wrestlers for Coach Jim Zeigler, but remain freshmen in eligibility because of the extra COVID year afforded to collegiate athletes nationwide. Both Harrison and Blackburn were slowed much of the season by injury, but had their legs solidly under them in Iowa.

Blackburn opened his tournament with a takedown and four back points to lead Neosho County’s John Bray 6-zip after one. Blackburn then ended it when he stuck Bray at 4:44.

“I walked out pretty confident,” Blackburn said after the victory was secured. “I could have moved better on my feet but it was the desired outcome.” The national stage, he said, was “exciting. I’ve been in big tournaments before, but nothing like this.”

After a cool down, rest and hydration, Michael Aguirre of Iowa Western waited.

In that one, Blackburn fell behind 4-0 on a takedown and two back points, only to rally and tie it 4-4 on a reversal and a pair of his own nearfall points. An escape by Aguirre with seven seconds left made it 5-4 after two. The third began with an Aguirre escape that Blackburn covered with a takedown. But then, like a bolt of lightning, the Trapper caught his opponent, turned him and recorded the exciting pin.

Then the worm turned, as the next matches went the other way for Blackburn.

In the semifinal round, he took an 18-1 technical fall loss to a defending national champion in Zach Ferris of Cloud County; 10 nearfall points on Ferris’ side of the board were key to the lopsided outcome.

Facing deep disappointment and an opponent in Khris Walton from Indian Hills who was trending upward on the momentum of a consolation victory, Blackburn was forced back onto the mat with little time to recover either physically or mentally. The outcome was a 7-1 Walton win that retired the 197-pound Trapper from the bracket.

The champion at 149 was Keaton Geertz of Iowa Central with North Iowa’s Jose Valdez taking the title at 197. Also of note was Garrett Ricks, the Western Wyoming Community College Mustang who won the national championship at 125.

Zeigler said the “blood round” for quarter final losers was “a really tough go for Ryker.”

As for Harrison, his first preliminary round bout came against Brandon Bollinger from North Idaho. Bollinger fell behind 2-0 on a Trapper takedown, but answered with a reversal to deadlock the match after one period, 2-2. Bollinger added a reversal in the second, 4-2, was awarded a riding time point at the whistle and won 5-2.

After the match, Harrison said that Bollinger “reversed me right away, then he got a leg ride on me and I couldn’t get out of it.”

The hold, said Zeigler, “Is tough to get out of. The guy [Bollinger] was able to sit on it most of the rest of the match.”

Dawson Chavez of Barton College was next up for Harrison in a match that began with a takedown for the Kansas grappler. Harrison answered with an escape and the first period ended 2-1. The Trapper got two more escapes in period two, however Chavez scored twice by takedown.

It was 6-2 as the final period began. Harrison scored a late reversal, but the damage had already been done on the strength of a reversal and four nearfall points by Chavez. The 12-5 decision ended the tournament for Harrison.

The Vernal, Utah, resident said he was hoping to “come back, improve, do better and finish hard” against Chavez. The points, however, did not fall his way.

Both wrestlers had only good things to say about their temporary community of Powell.

“It’s a nice small town. Quiet,” said Harrison.

Blackburn concurred.

“I like Powell. It’s pretty much like home, I guess,” said the native of Duchesne, Utah (with an estimated 2019 population of 1,830). After two years on the NWC campus, Powell is “kind of a [second] hometown for me,” Blackburn said.

Asked about Zeigler, Harrison had only compliments, calling him “a really good coach” who “helped me out with technique a lot and helped me get where I am.”

In turn, Zeigler appreciated what Harrison said to him moments after the disappointment of dropping his second match.

“He said, ‘Coach, I want to come back next year’” to get bigger, stronger and better in his optional third season, Zeigler recalled. “That’s what a coach wants to hear … it’s a coach’s biggest compliment.”

In what was a year of many challenges for NWC wrestling, “I’m proud of how the kids stuck together,” Zeigler said. “They supported each other,” he said, and “have made it their mission to help us get more kids back” in the program.

Current Trappers, he said, have taken it upon themselves to “spread the word we’re healthy as a program. They have true joy amongst each other. The kids are talking about next year already. I’m so proud of them, especially after a COVID year.”

Both of NWC’s national competitors qualified through the Plains District Tournament last month, Blackburn via a brace of pins; Harrison pinned his first district opponent ahead of a 17-4 major decision loss, then was awarded second with a shot at nationals.

It was the eighth straight NJCAA tournament hosted in Council Bluffs at the Mid-America Center alongside I-80, just across the Missouri River east of Omaha.

The Clackamas Community College Cougars came from Oregon to capture their fourth consecutive national title. Iowa Central, Northwestern Oklahoma A&M, Western Wyoming and North Idaho completed the top five in order.