Surprising CV Routs District Foes

Prep wrestling

From beginning to end, the District 8-AAA Wrestling Tournament was too much Central Valley.

Tied for third place during the Greater Spokane League dual meet season, the Bears had their way over the weekend.

They won five individual championships among six finalists and advanced a school-record 13 wrestlers to next weekend’s Region IV meet in Walla Walla.

It began with sophomore John Reese’s title at 108 pounds and ended with Bob Perkes’ pin at 275.

“I’m not stunned,” said CV coach Dale Ethridge. “We wrestled this way all year long. Every one of our losses came down to the final match.”

His team, he said, wrestled their hearts out during the season with nothing tangible to show for it. By Saturday, they had plenty of tangible results. The team scored 329.5 points to runner-up Mead’s 275. Seasonal co-champions University and Gonzaga Prep were third and fourth, respectively, with 220 and 200.5.

“It was sad to watch them give away the (league championship) trophies,” said Perkes. “We’re just now peaking. I don’t know if coach planned it. If he did he’s a genius.”

Perkes, defending his 275-pound title, came off his back for the second successive match against a Mead wrestler to pin Joe Collier less than a minute into the match.

“He must have watched the J.V. guy put me on my back earlier,” said Perkes. “He’s so tall he sucked up my arms and pulled me off the ground.”

Earlier, Reese beat University rival Craig Bishop 5-2 for the first of CV’s titles, but it didn’t compare to the semifinal pin over Chris Montgomery that resulted in an ear-to-ear grin.

“Personally this wasn’t one of my better matches,” Reese said after the finals. “The semi was probably the best I wrestled all year.”

CV’s other titles were by Rick Giampietri at 158 pounds, Shane Yackel at 168 and Joe Thiefault at 178.

Mead’s Jon Rugan was the only wrestler to beat a CV finalist, winning 11-8 over Shane Cunanan at 115.

That was one of two titles for the Panthers, who had six finalists and also were a hairdresser’s worst nightmare. Following the lead of 148-pound champion James Clark, most of Mead’s wrestlers peroxided their hair giving all but the blonded Collier an orange tint.

Clark beat teammate Joel Edminster by technical fall, 23-8, to improve his record to 26-0. Many of those came at 158 pounds, which Clark said has helped him.

“I did it for team points,” he said. “Almost every other team had their best or a better guy at 158. Wrestling bigger, stronger guys helped for this.”

Most of the district weight classes followed form. All 14 top seeds and 12 second seeds wrestled in the finals.

Ten of the favorites won championships. The only real surprise came at 141 where Gonzaga Prep sophomore Nick Bliss scored a reversal as time ran out in the second period and held on for 3-2 upset over Mead’s Lyle Beerbohm.

North Central Dave Sandberg beat Mead’s Steve Fish, scoring a takedown with less than a minute to go at 190 and University’s Jeff Schmedding won 9-8 at 215, getting a reversal with 28 seconds left in other dramatic matches.

By then Central Valley had taken the suspense out of the team race.

“We’ve known all along we were one of the toughest teams in the GSL,” said Ethridge. “We proved it tonight.”

District 7-AA

Led by champions Gary Adamson (108) and Ben Wise (215), Frontier League champion East Valley scored 269 to edge Colville (262.5) for the team title at Pullman.

Seeds to next weekend’s regional tournament at Riverside were spread out, with EV qualifying nine, West Valley eight, and Colville and Clarkston seven apiece.

Clarkston claimed the most champions: Mike Reyes (101), Tyson Thivierge (158), Cory Thivierge (178) and Scott Mountjoy (275).

Top-seeded wrestlers won titles in 12 of 14 weight divisions. The exceptions were second-seeded Tyson Thivierge beating Riverside’s Dan Kruger and secondseeded Justin Divis (141) beating Riverside’s Paul Purcell.

District 7 A-B

At Ritzville, Lakeside overwhelmed the field by winning half of the 14 championships, scoring 274 points and qualifying 14 to next weekend’s regional tournament at Mead.

Trevor Blackwell (101), Jason Belyea (108), Chris Padayao (115), Anthony Layton (122), Aaron Laughery (141), Nate Bohl (148) and Cory Hamilton (178) won titles for the Eagles.

Deer Park finished second with 145.5 points and advanced eight to region. Dana Nelson (275) was the Stags’ lone champion.

Medical Lake, third with 136.5 points, had four wrestlers in the finals but no champions. The Cardinals pushed through five to region, as did fourth-place Ritzville (96), which was led by champions Kyle Bauer (129) and Andy Hilzer (158).

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