Wichita ? A simple pinch would have been enough to bring Lawrence High’s Brendan Halpin back to reality Saturday at the state wrestling meet at the Kansas Coliseum.

Instead, the sophomore’s rough stretch in the 140-pound weight class continued when he popped his shoulder out of place during his first match of the afternoon. While Halpin pulled out a 3-2 overtime victory to make it to the Class 6A third-place match, his shoulder wouldn’t allow him to shoot against Shawnee Mission Northwest’s Chaz Hill.

Hill won, 6-0, and Halpin was left to wonder what could have been.

“I woke up this morning, and the first thing I thought of was that yesterday was a dream,” said Halpin, who missed the opportunity to wrestle in the finals when he allowed Maize’s Zach Hentzen to slip away from him in the final 10 seconds of their semifinal match Friday for a 6-5 win.

“I definitely should have won that match,” said Halpin, who finished his season 39-7. “I just can’t believe that I didn’t win that match and make it to the state finals.”

The sophomore earned his first state medal and also produced the city’s best outing of the weekend.

Free State’s Jesse Hardy was the only other city wrestler out of 14 qualifiers who took home a medal, taking fifth at 189 pounds with an 8-6 win over Goddard’s Chad Posch.

Hardy had the busiest day of any city wrestler, competing in four matches. Hardy, who ended his season 33-10, pinned his first two opponents Saturday before losing to Derby’s Jacob McFarland in the consolation semifinals.

For the first time in four years, no city wrestler qualified for a championship match.

Lawrence High's Brendan Halpin, left, wrestles Shawnee Mission Northwest's Chaz Hill. Hill won the Class 6A 140-pound third-place match Saturday at Wichita.

“I really thought everybody came back today and gave 100 percent,” Firebird coach Darell Andrew said. “In a couple of our matches, I feel like if we would have had maybe 30 seconds more, things might have been different. But everyone came out and realized they still had something to wrestle for.”

The teams finished back-to-back. Lawrence High took 25th place with 27 points, while Free State finished 26th with 25.

A handful of city wrestlers had lost in close matches Friday, and that trend continued Saturday.

Both Free State’s Matt Somers (130) and Lawrence High’s Nolan Kellerman (145), who experienced tough championship semifinal losses Friday, fell in the second round of consolation Saturday.

While LHS’ Pharouk Hussein (130) and Clay Kellerman (215) made it out of the second round, they fell in the consolation quarterfinals.

“I mean, it’s the state tournament, so every kid is going to be tough,” LHS coach Mark Dulgarian said. “But a lot of getting to the state championship involves how lucky you are in your draw.

“In both Pharouk and Clayton’s case, their draw showed how truly close they were to getting there.”

Halpin, who clearly had an advantage against Hentzen when the two were on their feet Friday, said he regretted parts of his match.

“I should have kept letting him get up and then take him back down, because I was having success just about every time I went for him,” he said.

In his opening match of the day against Manhattan’s Michael Miller, Halpin was lying on the mat when all of Miller’s weight fell on his right shoulder blade.

“I kind of felt it go pop-pop real quick,” Halpin said. “I wasn’t worried too much because I felt it go back in. But right after the match I started to get a lot of pain. I tried to ice it, but I wasn’t able to do anything with it out there.”

Halpin had beaten Hill in last week’s regional, but Hill had defeated him twice earlier in the season.