The Junction City Blue Jay wrestling team gathered at the Freshman Success Academy Thursday night for the end of the year banquet.

Reflecting back on the season the Blue Jays were able to accomplish a lot. They won their third straight Centennial League Title, finished 3rd as a team at Regional’s and sent nine wrestlers to state with six of those nine placing and the team finishing in fifth place.

“You know you want to be a state champion but that wasn’t in the picture, so you want to do the best you can and come as close as you can to that. I think finishing fifth comes pretty close to our goal,” said Head Coach Bob Laster. “Of course not everybody can complete their goals but that’s how goals work, it’s how close you can come to them.”

During the banquet Jake Bazan was voted Most Valuable Wrestler of the year, J’Quan Robinson was named Most Improved Wrestler of the year, and Max Bazan was awarded the Brandon Bramlage Outstanding Freshman of the year. The Varsity and JV King Pin awards handed out to the varsity and JV wrestler with the most pins on the season was also handed out. Jeryl Denton was this years Varsity King Pin with 29 pins, and the JV King Pin went to Troy Murray who finished the season with eight pins. Murray won a tie-breaker with Hunter Bogenhagen who also finished with eight pins, but Murray collected four of his pins in one tournament giving him the award.

Along with the season awards next years co-captains were named, Aryus Jones and Max Bazan.

This years varsity team will be graduating a number of seniors leaving plenty of open spots for next year. Coach Laster is looking to this year JV squad where he said he see’s a lot of potential,”and that’s all that you need to have. The desire needs to come from. I’m hoping that they will step it up because this was a senior oriented team. Out of the 14 guys I had on my varsity team, nine were upper classman.”

To wrap up this years banquet former Blue Jay Wrestling Head Coach Ben Bennett spoke to the team. In his message to the younger wrestlers returning next year he expressed the importance of taking advantage of any chance possible to get on the mat during the off-season as well as getting in the weight room and adding muscle.