In the first-ever Flyer Classic, the Lindbergh Flyers had quite a bit of success as hosts of the event — including a second-place finish in their pool and 12 wrestlers placing in the top four of their respective weight class.

Finishing ahead of the Flyers in their pool was DeSmet, which had 161 points to Lindbergh’s 149, while Fort Zumwalt North (170 points) won the other pool.

In the final round in which the brackets were crossed, a total of eight “even-numbered finishes” made an otherwise outstanding tournament end on a somewhat down note, but Coach Tom Gose nonetheless was pleased.

“Generally we don’t finish tournaments well, and we need to work on that,” he told the Call. “But we did have some good individual efforts to go with some that were disappointing. Some of the final-round losses are because you are up against good talent, but you’re also supposed to be at that level.”

The only champion for Lindbergh was A.J. Peters, who won the 171-pound championship with a 6-2 win over Zumwalt North’s Casey Stillman. Gose said that it was a special day for Peters.

“It was a lot of fun to watch him,” Gose said. “A couple of weeks back at the Parkway South Tournament — that was his worst varsity tournament ever. He was really down after that, and he realized that it is not easy just because you are a returning state qualifier.”

At the Flyer Classic, though, Peters was able to pull it together and get the first-place medal.

“I’ve never seen him as down as I did after South, but I’ve never seen him as up as he was after this win. He was awesome,” Gose added.

Joe Catalano (125), Jeff Streibig (130), Greg Feilner (135), Kevin Duniven (140), Dan Virtue (145) and Frank Pichler (160) all made it to the finals before suffering a loss and finishing second in their classes.

Catalano and Duniven both could not answer the bell in the finals, therefore giving their opponents a forfeit victory.

“Duniven was kept out because we suspected a possible concussion,” Gose said. “And it was similar with Joe (Catalano). We did not think it was a concussion, but he did have a headache and we wanted to play it safe.”

Winning first place due to the injury at 125 pounds was Rob Sherry of Zumwalt North, while Josh Hauk, also of Zumwalt North, won by injury default at 140.

Streibig took second in the 130-pound weight class when he was pinned by Zumwalt North’s Matt Cantrell late in the first period of their championship match, while Feilner’s second-place finish came when he lost a decision to Justin Strouder (Howell Central), 9-4.

At 145, Zumwalt North’s Chad Swagman beat Lindbergh’s Virtue by decision, 9-5, while the Flyers’ Pichler suffered a 4-2 loss to DeSmet’s Zack King at 160.

Bringing home third-place honors for Lindbergh were Jessie Cain (103), Matt Heard (189) and Brent Bradshaw (215). Cain won his third-place match by injury default over Tim Zeigler of DeSmet, Heard won his match when he pinned Sean Wagner of Zumwalt North in the first period and Bradshaw won when he pinned DeSmet’s Shaun Hoppe less than a minute into their match.

At 112, the Flyers’ Andrew Kennedy took fourth place, dropping an 8-0 major decision in his last match to Dan Mareschal of DeSmet, while Ben Lachman also took fourth for Lindbergh when Eureka’s Bobby Clement defeated him in the fourth-place match with a 10-0 major decision.

The Flyers were scheduled to compete in a dual on Tuesday — after the Call went to press. On deck for Lindbergh is the Tiger Classic at Cape Central High School this weekend in Cape Girardeau. The 20-team tournament starts at 5 p.m. Friday and includes several local teams, including the Flyers, Northwest, Marquette, McCluer North, Pattonville, St. Charles, Zumwalt North, Jackson and Ste. Genevieve. Also competing will be the highly touted team from CBC of Memphis.