New Palestine High School

The New Palestine boys wrestling team advanced eight individuals to semistate and finished second in Saturday's Perry Meridian regional. Three Dragons advanced to the finals, with Cole Vandygriff winning a regional title at 132 pounds. He will have a top seed at next Saturday's New Castle semistate. Vandygriff (25-6) advanced to the final with pins of Lawrence Central's D'Shaeon Wilson and Roncalli's Alex Plahitko. He then beat Southport's Josh Foxworthy 4-3 in the final. Two other Dragons finished second. Gunner Butt (29-5) was runner-up at 126. He won a tech fall over LC's Nathan Toxqui and pinned Lawrence North's Sean Tankersley to get to the title match, where he dropped a 3-2 decision to Mt. Vernon's Eli Broady. At 138, Peyton Hornsby (30-5) was also runner-up. He won a major decision over Perry Meridian's Anthony Quarlles, then beat LN"s Blake Jones 7-2. He was pinned by Warren Central's Kyrel Leavell in the title match. Finishing third were Bryce Doss at 144, Jaedyn Jeffries at 157, Colin Whetsel at 190 and Shaun Glass at 215. Gabe Flick was fourth at 165. The top four in each weight class advance to the semistate, which will be Feb. 10 at New Castle Fieldhouse. Also competing for the Dragons were Blake Doss (106), Landon Stranger (113) and Gavin Wilcher (175). The Dragons finished second out of 17 teams in the team score, tallying 107.5 points. NP finished runner-up to Warren Central (143). The Dragons finished ahead of Roncalli (103), Perry Meridian (90), Greenfield-Central (88) and a dozen other teams.