La Grande Tries Tri Again, And Wins Second Last Year, Tigers Take Tri-State; Sandpoint Third And Gonzaga Prep Ninth

La Grande’s runners-up from a year ago made sure the Tigers didn’t finish runners-up Friday in the 24th edition of the prestigious Tri-State high school wrestling tournament.

Eric Jorgensen and Shawn O’Rourke, who took second at their weights last year, provided the winning margin with individual titles as the Tigers of La Grande, Ore., secured the team championship in the closest Tri-State finish.

Jorgensen prevailed at 145 pounds and O’Rourke did likewise at 160 as La Grande tallied 159 points. Polson (Mont.), State A champions last year, finished with 157.5; Sentinel of Missoula, Mont., followed with 152; and Sandpoint, runner-up last year, was fourth with 148 points.

Gonzaga Prep finished ninth with 87.5, the highest Spokane-area team.

It was La Grande’s second title in three years.

“The first day is where we won it,” said coach Verl Miller, who had five other placers. The Tigers had a 15.5-point lead after the first day and nearly spent it all Saturday as the two Montana teams closed fast.

Sandpoint boasted the most individual winners (four): The Lawrence brothers (Jared at 112, Brett at 125), Zack Vaughan at 119 and Shawn Garner at 130.

But what hurt Sandpoint’s shot at a team title was the loss of two-time state champion Pat Larson (160), a junior who quit the team this week.

The championship matches took nearly 3 hours to complete, largely because just one matched ended by pin. Many of the matches were tightly contested.

Perhaps the match of the tournament came at 135. The crowd, estimated at 1,700 at North Idaho College’s Christianson Gym, certainly expressed appreciation after Ryan Presta of Sentinel, a junior, survived sudden death to upset previously undefeated Jay McGuffin, a two-time State A-B champion from Cashmere, Wash.

Presta scored a takedown with 12 seconds left in the first period, but McGuffin, 82-0 going into the match, scored an escape at the buzzer. McGuffin would score another escape to tie the score 2-2.

The score would stay knotted, forcing overtime. Though they scrambled in OT, neither could find an opening. The match moved to a 30-second sudden death, and McGuffin chose to start on the bottom.

If McGuffin escaped, he’d win; if Presta rode out his opponent, he’d win. McGuffin couldn’t get away.

The coaches honored Presta’s gutsy victory by naming him the tournament’s outstanding wrestler.

Gonzaga Prep’s Chris Montgomery, a sophomore, defeated crowd favorite Cosman Bishop of Snohomish, Wash., 9-2 in the opening match at 103.

Bishop, a double amputee, used superior upper-body strength to reach the finals. But he met his equal in Montgomery, who used a takedown and a reversal, coupled with two penalty points against Bishop for locking hands, to take a 6-0 lead into the third period.

In a tug-of-war at 125, Sandpoint’s Brett Lawrence, a senior, captured his third Tri-State title, tripping Andy Roberts of University, a junior, 4-2.

Lawrence caught Roberts’ feet in the first minute and scored a takedown. Lawrence added an escape in the second. And Roberts put on a late surge in the third, when he scored a reversal to cut the lead to 3-2 with 42 seconds left.

But Lawrence held on in the final seconds to become just the seventh wrestler in tourney history to win three titles.

“He stayed pretty much away from me with his long arms,” Lawrence said of Roberts. “The key in every final match is the first takedown. I got the first takedown and wrestled my way.”

Lawrence’s younger brother, Jared, a sophomore, kept his prep record intact (39-0) with a 10-0 win over Amos Hoyt of La Grande.

Other individual winners included: Jeremy Presta of Sentinel defeated Kye Ellison of Snohomish 12-2 at 140; Curtis Owen of Polson, a nephew of NIC coach John Owen, downed Brian Matten of Sentinel 7-4 at 152; Otto Olson of Everett, Wash., scored the lone pin over Justin Pluid of Bonners Ferry (2:17) at 171; Laki Ah Hi of Lewiston manhandled Rian Coffey of Auburn 11-4 at 189; and Mike Mondt of Auburn scored a 7-3 win over Bob Perkes of Central Valley at heavyweight.

Interestingly, Moses Lake, a traditional TriState power, didn’t have a finalist for the first time since 1977.

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