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Boys wrestling: Sieminski an individual Reser’s champion as Sweet Home places fifth

Sweet Home’s boys finished fifth out of 22 teams at the Reser’s Tournament of Champions held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 3-4, at Liberty High School.

The tournament is regarded as one of the toughest in the state and Coach Steve Thorpe said his Huskies did well, particularly since they only fielded varsity wrestlers in 10 of the 14 weight categories.

“That was a pretty good finish,” he said.

Senior Jake Sieminski was an individual champion for Sweet Home, the first in that tournament since 2014 when Ty Schilling won a title.

Sieminski scored two major decisions in the 132-pound bracket, including a 9-0 score over Tommy Belding of La Grande, before defeating Mountain View’s Drew Jones 4-2 in the final.

Thorpe said Sieminski’s performance prompted the tournament director to stage the 132-pound final as the last match of the night.

The Huskies finished with 145 points. Newberg won with 190 points, followed by West Linn (155), La Grande (152) Mountain View (148) and the Huskies (145). Thurston was sixth with 129, followed by Dallas (120) and Redmond (112). Crescent Valley was 10th with 106 points.

Junior Kyle Sieminski was second at 113 pounds, losing 10-8 to Roseburg’s Gage Singleton in the final.

Last year Sieminski was trailing 13-0 in the final when he got pinned by Singleton, and this year he lost on a takedown in the final 20 seconds, Thorpe noted.

“That shows how far Kyle has come,” the coach said.

Other placewinners in the varsity competition were freshman Tytus Hardee, third at 106 pounds; senior Ethan Spencer, fourth at 182; sophomore Ashton Swanson, fifth at 160; and sophomore David Steagall, sixth at 195 after defaulting due to injury.

“Tytus Hardy, to take third as freshman is quite a feat,”: Thorpe said, adding he hopes Hardy can “place high at the state tournament.”

He also noted that Spencer’s finish was his first time placing at Reser’s.

Sweet Home also placed a number of junior varsity wrestlers at the tournament, in which the JV’s placed fourth with 189.5 points out of 21 teams, behind Dallas (202.5), La Grande (193.5) and Newberg (193).

The Huskies finished with three second-place winners: Dillan Davis at 106 pounds, James Hearick at 126, and Luke Rosa at 138.

Conner Shoup was fourth at 113 pounds.

Placing sixth were Daniel Goodwin at 145, Evan Jensen at 182 and Dylan Sharp at 220.

The Huskies had a bad outing on Wednesday, Feb. 1, at home against Cascade, barely edging the Cougars, 38-33.

“We wrestled a very poor dual against Cascade,” Thorpe said. “We got out-hustled, out-worked.”

He added that normally he’d take the blame for such a poor performance, but this one, he said, was on the wrestlers.

“We had multiple kids who didn’t compete, or they ate too much after weight-ins.”

The Huskies rallied in the nightcap against Philomath, he said, dominating the Warriors 70-9.

“We had a great senior night against Philomath,” Thorpe said, adding that the Huskies’ carried that through to Reser’s “after a very average performance on Wednesday, to do what they did. That was a good way for us to head into the regional tournament, to get ourselves focused to try to win a regional title.”

Sweet Home will wrestle a depleted lineup at Cottage Grove at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8, before taking a week off before heading to the regional championship Feb. 18 at Cascade.

See more photos in our online gallery.

Wrestling starts at 10 a.m.

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