North teams in hunt

POCATELLO, Idaho – Home-field advantage is working so far, but three teams from a time zone over are waiting in the shadows.

Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston and Post Falls are in second, third and fourth place, respectively, after the first day of the Idaho State wrestling tournament.

CdA’s Vikings, with 81 points, are eight points back of Highland, which has a campus a scant 3 miles from Holt Arena.

“It’s nice to see three North Idaho teams right there in the mix,” Post Falls coach Dennis Amende said. “When you get to the state tournament, at least in our particular league, you root for everybody. Of course, sometimes you have to wrestle each other.”

Of course, in the 103-pound bracket, CdA’s Andrew Palmer might have another reason to root for a 5A, District 1-2 foe.

Palmer won his first two matches with ease, as did district foe Chad Booth of Post Falls. Should each win his semifinal match this morning, they’d meet for the fourth time this year in the state title match. Palmer beat Booth twice in the regular season, but Booth pinned Palmer in the district tournament.

“Yeah, I’d like (Booth) to get there, but he’s got a tough kid (in the semifinals), so whatever,” Palmer said. “And so do I. I’d wrestle either of them, because that means I’d be there.”

CdA still has five wrestlers in the running for a gold medal, including 130-pound junior Sam Howard, who scored one of the largest upsets of the first round by defeating No. 2 seed Jesus Dozal of Caldwell 8-7.

Lewiston, led by top seed Tracey Huffman (135) and No. 2 seeds Sammy Metz (140) and Casey George (119), still has six wrestlers in the championship bracket. Post Falls has four remaining, led by top seed Cole Amende at 215.

4A: One level below, the Lakeland Hawks are still hanging around the trophy race, sitting in fifth place. At 66.5 points, the Hawks are likely out of the title picture (Columbia leads with 119 points), but they trail fourth-place Pocatello by just 10 points.

With a low number of entrants into the state tournament, Lakeland needed to squeeze out every point it could.

In addition to all its top four seeds winning, Lakeland got some help from sixth-seeded junior Ken Winn, who knocked off No. 3 seed Charlie Neff from Blackfoot with a 12-4 major decision in the quarterfinals.

“It feels really good to beat the third seed,” Winn said. “That was a good upset. The scoreboard showed that I did a good job.

“The whole season I’ve been all over the place. My teammates don’t know half the things I do, and when I get off the mat, I have no idea what I did. I just know I got the win.”

“It’s huge to get these points,” Lakeland coach Rob Edelblute said. “The first couple rounds, with these teams bringing down 20 or so kids, it’s hard to make up that gap. We have to get as many placing points as we can get.”

Defending state champions Kyle McCrite (125 pounds) and Brandon Richardson (140) are among the Hawks still in the hunt for individual titles.

Sandpoint top seed Garret Belgarde (103) needed just 89 seconds to win his first two matches.

3A: Priest River sits in third place after the first day, and while American Falls looks to be running away with the top trophy, the Spartans are within striking distance of second-place Fruitland (2.5 points ahead).

The Spartans’ chances could be hurt by a lack of depth, however. Just two Priest River wrestlers – top-seeded Wayde Rabidue at 145 pounds and third-seeded James Hegge at 119 – are in the semifinals.

If Howard’s first-round win was the upset of the night, then Kellogg’s Cole Jerome pulled off the comeback of the night. The freshman 103-pounder trailed Salmon’s Mark Bigley 13-3 in the third round of the quarterfinal bout, but Jerome pulled off a pin with 22 seconds remaining to steal the match and advance to the semifinals.

Defending state champion Dayne Swisher from Bonners Ferry won his first two matches of the 140-pound bracket via pin.