ST. PAUL — Three of nine Albert Lea wrestlers placed Saturday in the Class AAA state individual tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Lucas Hansen (112 pounds) and Dalton Westerlund (145) finished fourth, and Dakota Wangsness (103) finished sixth.

But the state wrestling tournament is a place of tough breaks and bad draws and a number of Albert Lea wrestlers found out the hard way.

The Tigers’ 160-pounder Cory Hansen was eliminated for the championship semifinals with a 4-2 to the eventual state champ Kyle Begin, of Anoka. He then lost on a last-second takedown in the consolation quarterfinals, ending his career.

At 189 pounds Friday, The Tigers’ Conner Kortan drew a first-round matchup with No. 2-ranked Shaun Little. Kortan was edged 5-3 and Little went on to lose in the finals in four overtimes.

Westerlund, who dropped down from 152 pounds to 145, was the only Tigers wrestlers to advance the championship semifinals. There he ran into No. 1-ranked Zach Rohr, of Hastings, who beat Westerlund by a single point: 7-6. With the win, Rohr moved onto the state title match, which he won 6-3.

Westerlund on the other hand suffered another one-point loss in the third-place match to Mounds View’s Luke Boroda. Through the first three minutes of the match, Boroda scored two takedowns and an escape to build a five-point lead. Westerlund earned an escape at the end of the second period to pull within 5-1 entering the third. In the final period, Westerlund scored an escape and received two penalty points after Boroda was called for stalling twice. Boroda held off Westerlund’s shots at a takedown in the closing seconds, though, and held on to nip the Tigers junior 5-4.

Hansen, who lost in his first-round match Friday, won three straight wrestleback matches for a spot in Saturday’s third-place match where he faced a familiar opponent: Owatonna’s Nick Scheffert.

Hansen beat Scheffert on Feb. 26 on a dramatic last-second takedown to win the Section 1AAA championship. On Saturday, the rematch had much less drama and a different result. Scheffert scored a takedown in the first period and neither wrestler scored the rest of the match as the Owatonna senior and defending state runner-up won 2-0.

At 103 pounds, Wangsness had arguably the toughest draw of the tournament as the No. 3-ranked wrestler also had the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked wrestlers on his side of the bracket.

Wangsness ran into No. 2 Seth Gross, of Apple Valley in the championship quarterfinals Friday and lost 9-1. On Saturday, Wangsness beat Irondale’s Ryan Weinmann 4-2 in the consolation quarterfinals but lost 5-1 to Erik Olson, of Sauk Rapids-Rice in the consolation semis.

In the fifth-place match against Hastings’ Luke Rowh, Wangsness earned an escape and 1-0 lead in the second and led going into the third. In the final period, Rowh tied the match 1-1 with an escape and scored a winning takedown with 30 seconds left and won 3-1.

“Losing some close matches wasn’t because of lack of effort,” Tigers coach Larry Goodnature said. “We were so close to getting some other kids to place or to place higher. That’s something you can’t coach it’s just the way it is.”

None of the three Tigers placewinners were seniors, giving Goodnature a future to be excited about.

“It’s really neat that we’ve got a lot of kids coming back,” he said. “It was a good experience not only for the team but as individuals. Now they’ve got a taste of it and they’re going to want to get back up there.”

The Tigers team placed fourth Saturday and finished 28-5 on the season. They graduate six starting seniors off this year’s team, four who made it to the state tournament as individuals.

“On the bus ride home I said ‘As far as our state tournament goes we had a great year placing fourth,” Goodnature said. “Not many teams can say that. I hate to see the seniors go. This was a great bunch to coach and be around all these years. They were a huge part of our team.

The Tigers lose starting seniors Caleb Kolodge (140 pounds), Cory Hansen (160), Carter Kortan (171), Conner Kortan (189), Caleb Gaudian (215) and Alex Nielsen (285).