Maximizing your wins is important. But sometimes, so is minimizing your losses.
"All of our duals are going to be close all year, it's going to come down to some guys working to get extra points and other guys working not to give up extra points," Jefferson City assistant coach David Ganey said Friday after the Jays finished 2-1 on the opening night of the Missouri Duals at Helias.
Jefferson City dropped its opener 54-18 to Lebanon before beating Waynesville 48-21 and Eureka 39-31.
Ganey said the matchup against Eureka wasn't the best for the Jays.
"It was an important point in the tournament for the kids," Ganey said. "We stress that we need to go hard the entire time and never relaxing.
"We had some kids that really stepped up, they knew we needed bonus points and they worked for those points. Even in the matches we lost, the kids fought to prevent bonus points. They didn't give up and saved the team some points."
Jefferson City won five of the 11 contested matches against Eureka. But three of those wins - Garrett Butel at 113 pounds, Michael Friederich at 138 and Will Kuster at 152 - were by fall while Sam Rackers won by technical fall at 145. Clayton Hurley won by major decision at 132 for the Jays.
The Jays also won three matches by fall - Christian Strope at 120, Hurley at 132 and Brandon Backues at 220 - in the victory against Waynesville. Ian Cote had an important victory at 195, an 11-6 decision in overtime, as well.
"We did a good job of getting some wins in some close matches," Ganey said.
Jefferson City opened the season last month with a 49-21 loss at Lebanon.
"This dual looked a lot like that one," Ganey said.
Jefferson City will wrap up division action this morning against Blue Springs and Lee's Summit West, a future district tournament opponent.
"The matches in that dual are going to be very big when you look down the road," Ganey said.
The Jays will then wrestle in the semifinal and final rounds of the tournament this afternoon.
"There are no easy matches," Ganey said. "That's why you come to tournaments like the Missouri Duals, you want to wrestle in events like this to get you set up for state."
Action will begin at 9 a.m. today.