Wichita ? Lawrence High wrestling coach Mark Dulgarian’s crew cut might have switched from a satin silver to straight gray Friday night at the Kansas Coliseum.

“What are you trying to do, give me more gray hairs? I don’t have any more room,” Dulgarian quipped after watching LHS junior Nolan Kellerman squeak out a 9-6 victory over Emporia’s Daniel Dikin in the championship semifinals.

“It was probably a little closer than Coach wanted, but I wasn’t trying to do anything stupid there to lose,” said Kellerman, who improved to 42-0 and will wrestle Derby junior Kirk Fairley (34-10) tonight in the Class 6A 160-pound finals.

“It feels really great to know I’m already going to medal. The rest is kind of icing on the cake,” continued Kellerman, who scored a quick 4-0 lead on Dikin, but sputtered a bit late in the match.

“I already know I’ve had my best day down here, because it seems like both years before I’ve always had some of my worse days at state.”

Friday was close to the kind of day Dulgarian and Free State coach Darrell Andrew expected. The Lions are in 10th place with 43.5 points, while the Firebirds are 18th with 29.

Both schools had the majority of their wrestlers lose their first-round matches when 17 of the city’s 22 qualifiers were defeated.

Still, nine city wrestlers rebounded in consolation matches and will continue today.

“On the whole, I think we did pretty well,” Andrew said. “Obviously, we had a couple of tough draws, but I thought some of the kids came back in consolations and rebounded in a major way.”

Four wrestlers, including Kellerman, made it to the championship semifinals.

Kellerman was the only city competitor to reach the championship finals.

Free State’s Marc Somers dropped his 125-pound semifinal to Manhattan’s Jeb Woodford by a narrow 4-2 margin, while LHS senior Pharouk Hussein scored several late points, but still fell, 13-8, to Junction City’s Mike Mancuso.

Firebird Jesse Hardy, who placed fifth last season, lost to defending 189-pound champ Neil Cisper, 5-2.

“I think you could tell that he might have been slightly timid in the outset,” Andrew said of Hardy. “But Jesse is the kind of kid you can never give up on because he can always drop you in a heartbeat, so I think Cisper was plenty careful at the end.”

The Lions were careful, but still had a few tough breaks go against them.

Brendan Halpin — the city’s highest-placing medalist from last year, who has been bothered by a shoulder injury this season — lost, 3-1, to Garden City’s Carter Ryker in the first round.

Lion big man Blake Hegeman also fell in the first round when he lost by default to Manhattan’s Matt Cox when Cox became briefly unconscious after Hegeman performed an illegal hold. Both LHS wrestlers went on to win consolation matches.

“Personally, I think that call is a lot of crap at this level,” Dulgarian said of Hegeman’s foul. “But that’s how it went, so we just have to go from there.”