ST. PAUL — United South Central’s A.J. Dreyer has found himself in the medal round of the state tournament after winning his consolation round match Friday at the Class A individual tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Dreyer used a headlock for the first time this season in his match against Brody Davidison at 215 pounds and it worked well as he picked up a fall at 4 minutes, 23 seconds to keep his state tournament alive.

“It feels good, I never really expected to be here at the beginning of the year,” Dreyer said. “I’ve gone a long ways since the beginning of the year.”

Dreyer suffered a 3-2 setback against Evan Stock in his next match, but will wrestle for fifth place against the same wrestler that knocked him out of the quarterfinals, Brad Kneisl, the No. 1-ranked wrestler in Class A at 215.

Preston Stolach saw his run at the state tournament come to an end with a 10-6 loss to Aaron Zimmer of Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunberg in the consolation round.

“Preston wrestled a good match,” Rebels head coach Steven Wood said. “The kid just had a little funk to him.”

The good news for Stolach is that he’ll have his senior year to look forward to making another trip to state.

New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva’s Colton Schlaak bounced back from an up-and-down Thursday performance to go 2-0 Friday at the Class A individual state tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul to put himself into the third place match Saturday.

Schlaak started the day with a 6-3 decision against Nathan Wiese to into the medal stage.

He drew Zumbrota-Mazeppa’s Nate King in his next match and came through with a 9-7 decision to make his way to the third place match. Schlaak will face Aaron Zimmer Saturday.

Panthers head coach Paul Cyr credited a good workout as one of the things that helped Schlaak turn around his performance.

“He was just a completely different kid who went out there today,” Cyr said. “We made sure we had him really warmed up today. It came down to he wanted to get a medal and he wanted to win these last matches so badly. That’s a big part of why he’s been successful.”

Schlaak said he focused on getting off to an early start in his matches Friday, something he wasn’t successful at Thursday.

“The main strategy was to score early and often and just keeping scraping around and not give up any points,” Schlaak said.

It’s been a solid run for Schlaak in his fourth trip to state. He picked up his first state victory this year and is in position to possibly go home with a third place medal.

“We’re going to finish ahead of the kid that beat us,” Cyr said. “I just thought, both matches today, he did a real good job of moving his feet, creating some action and some scoring chances for himself.”

Jason Cirksena of Geneva is a junior at Kasson-Mantorville. He wrestles at 140. He beat Ben Horn of St. Michael Friday and was in the third-place match Saturday against Jake Bothun of Dawson-Boyd- Lac Qui Parle.