Whew! Bears take it to Knights
East Valley entered the Greater Spokane League season favored, but Central Valley - which won the title outright in 2007 and lost to the Knights by a point last year 29-28 when the two ended with 9-1 records - had other ideas. The Bears won 34-23 getting upset victories at 103 pounds and at 160 and capturing three of the four matches I had considered tossups after projecting seven sure EV wins and three for CV.
This weekend there will be an unusual gathering of teams at Ferris for a series of makeup GSL matches. CV meets the Saxons at noon and Mead at 2 p.m. in bouts with other expected contenders. Ferris also wrestles Gonzaga Prep at 2 p.m. and Mead at 4. Mead faces Gonzaga Prep at noon.
Here's my story on the CV-EV encounter:
A year ago, only a point separated
EV won 29-28 when the pair wrestled and the teams ultimately ended the Greater Spokane League season with identical 9-1 records.
There was a surprise or two when the teams met again Thursday night at CV. The host Bears (3-0) exposed no obvious holes in a lineup that lifted them to a somewhat surprising 34-23 victory over the Knights (3-1). and showed they remain a team to be reckoned with.
“The whole team wrestled hard,” CV coach Rick Giampietri said. “We talked about not giving up extra team points, to keep wrestling and giving us everything they had.”
It was apparent the team heeded the admonishments. From start to finish, beginning with a pin by the Bears’ Nick Beeler at 215 pounds and ending with Andy Wickstrom’s late 8-5 upset victory over EV state placer Nic Price, CV made the Knights work for everything they got.
In between, CV jolted the Knights with a double dose of
“Beeler just started it off,” he said. “Logan Ames was huge. Tyler Ames just went for it. He got taken down and if he stays down, it’s over, but he wrestled hard. The
The Bears ultimately won eight of 14 matches. CV had three pins to just one for the Knights, captured nearly every tossup contest and kept matches close where veterans tangled.
Pivotal was a contest between talented 103-pound freshmen in which Logan Ames scored a takedown in overtime to upset Nick Sweeney. He blocked Sweeney’s attempts at arm drags and led 4-2 on a penalty point and uncontested escape until Sweeney’s takedown tied it with 13 seconds remaining.
“That was a pretty big win,”
Not to be upstaged, his brother Tyler, a junior 125-pounder, got the second of CV’s pins three matches later.
“I had to do it,” he said. “(
The teams traded pins early. EV’s Dakota Lawson followed Beeler’s to tie the contest.
“We needed that,” he said. “This is going to be a tough dual and we’ve got to take every point.”
As it turned out, CV did a better job of that. The Bears won three straight, and Logan Ames’ win made it 15-6. After EV’s Keith Babington beat Jarod Maynes 8-4 in a contest between state placers, Braden Davis moved up and took a major decision that was followed by Tyler Ames’ pin.
Gabe Rodriguez got points back for EV and Sean Biltoft made it back-to-back major decisions, but Hollenbeck’s first-period pin at 140 made it 31-17 with three matches to go.
EV needed to win them all and pin twice, but it didn’t happen in matches between both teams’ most veteran competitors. Wickstrom’s win, which included two penalty points and a reversal in the final 10 seconds, provided the final indignity.
CV moves on Saturday to a noon-2 p.m. doubleheader at Ferris against the host Saxons and Mead Panthers.
Other GSL matches: Elsewhere, the Ferris Saxons (2-1) won 45-32 at
Great Northern League: