As if battling the top 285 pounders in the state weren’t enough, Lakota East High’s Jacob Burton had another war waging at the state wrestling tournament.

Burton, who finished eighth as a junior, woke up the second day of the three-day event with blisters in the back of his throat, making swallowing and breathing a challenge.

And he always uses a mouthpiece.

“It was really hard to breathe,” Burton said after finishing sixth. “I wasn’t nervous this year, but I didn’t feel that well. But, stuff happens, I guess.”

Burton cruised through his first-round match, running up a 6-0 lead before pinning Geno Rollo of Pickerington North at the 5:17 mark.

The next morning, however, Burton gave up an early takedown to Canton Glen Oak’s Corey Siegfried, but battled back to tie the match 2-all heading into the final period. Siegfried escaped and Burton could not record the winning takedown in losing to the eventual runner-up, 3-2.

“My goal was to win it,” Burton said. “It is one of the worst feelings in the world (to lose). You win the first one and you tell yourself you can do it, then you lose the second one and it is like this sucks.”

To make matters worse, Burton had to turn around and wrestle about an hour after losing in the quarters and had to win to guarantee placing for the second year in a row.

“Mentally, it was tough to come back,” Burton said. “The worst part comes after state when you start thinking about it and realize what you should have done.”

Burton bounced back with a 4-2 win over Sam Burns of Toledo St. Francis DeSales to guarantee finishing at least eighth again. The East senior went on to record a 5-3 win over Perrysburg’s Cale Bonner to move into the consolation semis.

“It was a little bit of a relief,” Burton said of the win over Burns. “I knew I was going to place, but I wanted to place a lot higher.”

Burton, however, dropped a 6-0 decision to the same opponent he had lost the district finals to – Truman Gutapfel of Harrison. He also lost 3-2 in tiebreaker to Northwest’s Ameer Daniels in the fifth place match.

Burton had defeated Daniels at the district.

“Truman (Gutapfel) is just really big and a good athlete,” Burton said. “He’s hard to wrestle.”

Burton, who is looking at wrestling at Mount St. Joseph’s next year in college. He can’t believe how quick his senior season went.

“I remember when I was a freshman and sophomore I thought the season took forever,” Burton said. “This year, it seems like it went so fast.”