HASTINGS &045; A few members of the Albert Lea ninth-grade wrestling team were disappointed, so coach Mike Hansen reminded them of the magnitude of their accomplishment.

&uot;We did what we went there to do,&uot; said Hansen. &uot;We said at the start of the day, we should come home with nothing less than the state championship, and we got it done.&uot;

The disappointment came in the fact it was shared with Owatonna, which Albert Lea tied 31-31 in the finals. But the locals lost to Owatonna in the season opener, and got two falls in the final three matches to tie the Huskies at Hastings Saturday.

&uot;It was a fun day, it really was,&uot; said Hansen. &uot;Overall, we wrestled very aggressively all day, going for the falls and the extra points, and it made a difference. The guys wrestled hard all day.&uot;

The Tigers opened with a 64-12 triumph over Breckenridge. They beat Foley and St. Francis by identical 47-24 scores, and reached the finals with a 40-25 victory over Scott West.

Albert Lea won eight of 15 bouts against Owatonna, but tiebreakers are not used in state-championship meets.

The Tigers trailed Owatonna 25-19 in the finals, getting falls from Ben Berhow at 171 pounds and Mike Honeycutt at 189 to take a 31-25 lead.

Honeycutt finished 5-0 for the day, one of four locals to not lose a bout. The others were Matt Morris, 4-0 at 119; Zach McGinnis, 1-0 at 119; and Taylor Ignaszewski, 4-0 at 130.

The other Albert Lea wrestlers and their record for the day: 95 pounds, Logan Hansen, 4-1, two falls; 100, Eric Johnson, 4-1, two falls; 105, Beau Hansen, 3-2; 112, Jake Cibert, 2-1; 112, Mike Olson, 1-1; 125, Darren Honeycutt, 0-1; 125, Eric Elleby, 3-1; 130, Brandon Mellang, 0-1; 135, Nate Goodnature, 4-1; 140, Tim Frazier, 2-3; 145/152, Alex Paul, 4-1, three falls; 145/152, Jesse Peterson, 1-4; 160, Levi Hughes, 1-4; 171, Berhow, 4-1, four falls; heavyweight, Tony Malepsy, 2-3.

Olson, Elleby, Goodnature, Paul, Berhow, Honeycutt and Malepsy are the freshmen on Albert Lea’s squad. There are two seventh-graders and the rest are in eighth. The freshmen finished their dual-meet season 7-1-1.

The ninth-graders travel to Faribault on Monday, Jan. 27 for the individual section tournament. The top three at each weight advance to state.