The sting of last year’s district wrestling heartbreak served as motivation for Xayvion Anderson.

The Marshalltown junior qualified for his second state wrestling tournament in the last three years with a district championship at 157 pounds in front of the home crowd at the Roundhouse on Saturday evening.

Fellow Bobcat junior Lucas Bantz will join Anderson at state after winning his third-place match at 126 pounds to qualify for his first state tournament appearance.

Anderson took down Abe Bushong of Southeast Polk with five seconds left in the third period to force sudden victory, then finished his takedown in sudden victory for a pin in 6 minutes, 25 seconds of total mat time.

“I knew at the start of this week this would be the matchup I’d have,” Anderson said. “The coaches told me to really get my mental right.”

Anderson qualified for state as a freshman at 126 pounds, but finished fourth at 138 pounds in last season’s home district meet, losing a 2-1 decision in the third-place match.

“That was very heartbreaking,” Anderson said. “I could have stopped and cried about it but I used it as motivation coming into this tournament, and once I won my semifinals match and knew I was going to state I didn’t want to stop there, I wanted to finish as district champ.”

Bushong grabbed the first takedown for a 2-0 lead at the end of the first period. Bushong escaped out of bottom in the second period but was taken down and turned for two points as Anderson jumped to the lead. Bushong escaped once more and scored his own takedown and 2-point turn to lead 8-4 going to the final period.

This time, Anderson escaped out of bottom position to start the third and got two on a takedown with under a minute to go. Bushong escaped again and tried to dodge Anderson’s offense, but he was caught and brought down in front of the scorer’s table to tie the match in the final seconds.

“When Xayvion gets to his offense, I don’t think anyone can stop him,” MHS head coach Luke Cross said. “It’s when he starts to think about the match rather than just reacting that guys can pick at him. There were moments when he was just wrestling lights out, and we just need to be more consistent with that kind of wrestling.”

The two jockeyed for the winning score in sudden victory, but Anderson found the angle to score his two, put Bushong on his back, and then gave a flex and a yell to the cheering Bobcat fans in the Roundhouse.

“I’ve been training hard with Coach Miller, practicing every day in matches with him and my practice partners,” Anderson said, “and the hype from the stands really made it nice.”

Bantz, like Anderson, finished fourth at 113 pounds last season with a loss by pinfall.

This year, after a 3-1 loss by decision to Xavier’s Jack Foster in the semifinals, Bantz dominated his next two opponents with a tech fall of Waterloo West’s Josiah Wendland, and a pin of Pella’s Dax Putz as the Bobcat corner erupted in celebration.

“I was just ready to go kick some butt,” Bantz said of preparing for the third-place match. “I’m a dog in a corner, there’s nowhere I can go, so I’ve gotta go win.”

Bantz was up 10-0 before turning Putz for the pin. Cross said the Bobcats’ previous experience with Nick Wise wrestling Putz at the Williamsburg Duals earlier this season provided valuable intel for Bantz.

“We knew that that kid’s most dangerous position was when he was on his back,” Cross added. “He fights so hard on his back that he puts you in danger. So we knew we’d put him on his back but we told Lucas to just take things slowly and secure your points, and he did exactly that.”

Anderson added: “I was so excited to see Lucas get that, he’s put in so much hard work and it shows after that match he had.”

The state qualifiers were bright spots in an otherwise tough final session where the Bobcats lost three third-place matches.

Arguably the biggest blow for the Bobcats was senior Damien Rodriguez’ dropping a 7-6 decision in a 113-pound third-place match after Xavier’s Elliott Gnewuch scored a reversal and then turned Rodriguez for three back points as time expired.

“Damien’s been such a great leader in the room, helping the young guys out as much as possible and chipping at the guys if they’re not working hard,” Cross said. “That’s gonna hurt — it really was right there, and I know that’s going to sting for a long time.”

Another tough loss came for Johan Gomez, a returning state qualifier from last year, pinned in the second period of his third-place match at 215 pounds against Xavier’s Jean Ngoma.

“He hurt his elbow really badly in the Lincoln duals [on Jan. 20], we haven’t even had an MRI done on it, so this is his first time wrestling since then,” Cross said. “And we only had two live practices with him. We were hoping that he would do better, but the rust was building up from that time off and he was wrestling some big, strong guys with one bad arm.”

Colby Cross, a freshman, lost by 9-4 decision to Mason City’s Reed Kruger in his third-place match.

“Beyond the fact that he’s my son, I’m proud of him,” Luke Cross said. “He’s just getting better every single time he wrestles.

“We have five underclassmen that wrestled today, and while the outcome isn’t anything that I wanted or expected, I’m hopeful that this young group of guys will be a force to reckon with these next couple of years.”

Luke singled out Nick Wise among those underclassmen as someone he hoped could’ve punched his ticket on Saturday. Wise lost by decision in the consolation semifinal of a 132-pound bracket that featured a top three that Cross expects all to be on the podium at this week’s state tournament.

“He’s the one that hurts me the most because the kid does everything absolutely right — academics, always early for warmups, exactly the kind of wrestler I want as a coach,” Cross said. “He’s not just leading the younger guys, he’s leading the whole team. You ask anybody who the hardest worker is and they’ll say it’s him. … I love Nick Wise, and my heart hurts for him.”

Carson Wright (150), Dalton Zednichek (165) and Michael Narvaez Correa (175) also bowed out in the consolation semifinals after going 1-2 on the mats. Roberto Almanza (138), Kenton Niehouse (144) and Jaxson Hinkle (285) all went 0-2.