By NICK McQUEEN

nmcqueen@dailynews.net

Thursday's home-opening dual, the third outing of the season for the Thomas More Prep-Marian wrestling team, was rather short.

But, what first-year Monarch coach Mike Howell saw in just seven matches on mat against shorthanded Ellsworth, has him excited about the progression his squad made in just the first week of the season.

TMP-Marian took five of the seven matches wrestled en route to a 55-9 dual victory, with several wins coming via forfeit, but it was the adjustments a few of the Monarchs made that was more of a positive.

"As a whole, we wrestled pretty solid," said Howell, a former four-year wrestler at Fort Hays State University. "Much, much better than Tuesday (a 1-1 split in Cimarron). We had some guys go out there and wrestled the way we wanted to.

"We went out and worked on some things Wednesday, some things we messed up earlier in the week," he added. "We corrected them in one day."

Howell's perfect example came in the form of Monarch freshman Parker Goldsberry, one of two freshman who saw action on the mat Thursday. Goldsberry was up against Ellsworth's Tyler Warta, the Bearcats' lone senior and returning Class 3-2-1A state qualifier.

"In his match, he showed me he learned a few things," Howell said of Goldsberry.

Under a minute into the match, Goldsberry was on his back, but close to the circle, and fought his way not only out of a quick pin, but also was fast enough to not allow any fall points to be scored early.

"It showed me that he knew where he was at on the mat, and that's something we worked with him on earlier this week," Howell said.

TMP-Marian's other freshman who saw action Thursday, Luke Brull, wreslted well against Ellsworth sophomore Ryan Canaan at 152, falling 6-3 with a chance to score a late takedown.

"I didn't expect those young kids to come out and correct things in one day," Howell said. "But, a lot of them went out there and they did the things we worked on."

At 171, sophomore Scott Heimann picked up a pin just 57 seconds into the match, one of three pins for the Monarchs. Both sophomore Dylan Schumacher (112) and senior Jesse Barnes (285) picked up fall victories. Schumacher won in 59 seconds, while Barnes needed just 1:19 to cap the night, a much better performance than Howell saw out of his team in the 1-1 start Tuesday.

"We just did OK (Tuesday)," Howell said. "And, I don't like doing OK. It's average. I want thse guys to be great, and they are working their way there already."

Senior Preston Werth and junior Grant Holub were the other two Monarchs in action. Holub (130) won via a 10-5 decision, while Werth won 15-5 at 215 to move to 3-0 on the year.

The Monarchs will be at home again Thursday for a double dual with St. Johns Military and Minneapolis at Al Billinger Fieldhouse at 4:30 p.m.