East Valley ekes out win over University
For all the state placers and tournament champions peppered throughout the two lineups, the University-East Valley Greater Spokane League wrestling showdown came down to a couple of journeymen, one a backup to a three-time state finalist and the other coming off an embarrassing finish in his previous league match.
In the final match of the night, 130-pound sophomore Gabe Rodriguez’s takedown at the buzzer to beat senior Justin Livingston 5-3 lifted the Knights to a 32-30 come-from-behind victory that kept EV’s league championship hopes alive.
“I’m usually nervous going into a match and I was nervous going into this one,” Rodriguez said. “I knew it was close at the end and I was just trying as hard as I could to finish the takedown.”
“If I could sit down and write out a storybook finish to a match like this one, this is the one I’d write,” EV senior Clete Hanson said. “To have Gabe come back after last week and win the match for us in the last second, it doesn’t get any sweeter than that.”
Last week Rodriguez’ suffered an embarrassing loss, passing out in his match to lose by injury default and the Knights went on to lose to Ferris 33-32.
“It wasn’t an illegal hold or anything,” EV coach Craig Hanson said. “Between getting his mouthpiece sideways and having his headgear jammed down over his face, he couldn’t breathe and he passed out and it cost us the match.”
On paper, Rodriguez was scheduled to face former state champion and three-time state finalist Brian Owen in the final match of the night. Instead, Titans coach Don Owen moved Owen up to 135, where he quickly pinned Eric Start to start the match.
U-Hi took charge of the match early, building a 20-3 lead after senior Dan Jordan scored a major decision over Nick Bellomy at 160.
Junior Dakota Lawson started an EV comeback by pinning Garrett Nichols at 171. Hanson followed with a technical fall at 189 over Brandon Daniel and senior Jordan Berezay evened the score with a pin of freshman Dustin Johnson at 215.
The Titans moved senior Marques Johnson, the normal starter at 215, up to face Alaric Parks at heavyweight, a moved that surprised the EV senior.
“I was expecting to wrestle their regular heavyweight,” he said. “But by the time we got into the match I could tell he wasn’t going to be as aggressive against me as I thought he would be.
“All week long our coaches have been telling us that we needed to score wins and falls if we were going to pull this match out and that’s what I was trying to do.”
Parks scored a 9-3 victory, giving the Knights their first lead at 23-20.
A key for the Knights was sophomore Sean Biltoft’s performance against former Knight Anthony Rivera, one of the top-ranked 125-pounders in the state.
With his team ahead by just three points, Biltoft avoided making the kind of mistake that leads to a loss by pin and six team points for the Titans. In the end, Rivera only managed a four-point major decision, staking U-Hi to a one-point lead going into the final match.