In one of the biggest meets of the year, the Huskies faced some of the toughest 3-Acompetition at the Oregon Classic, staged in Redmond last weekend.
The Huskies, who had morning and early afternoon practices on Thursday, left early to get over the mountains during daylight. Little did they know, they had a lot more time to wait around because of the adjustments to the brackets made necessary when nine of the twenty-four schools failed to show because of weather conditions.
It was just one more thing for which they had to adjust since they were the only team with a bye and waited until 5 o’clock before they wrestled against Burns, the number one rated team in the state.
Overall, coach Steve Thorpe was proud of the way the wrestlers adjusted, both to missed practices and to the time delay. On their own, they had organized workouts to keep in shape, whether it was running or working on stationary bikes.
“Wrestling is a sport where you lose not only timing when you miss practices, but you also miss the conditioning to make weight,” said Thorpe.
But the team prepared well and all the wrestlers made weight. And then they faced off with Burns, who has five number one seeded wrestlers in the state. Though they were defeated 54-21, Thorpe was pleased with their effort. The Huskies came away with three wins, two by pin. Trevor Tagle pinned his opponent in the second round and Rob Martin posted the first of his three victories by fall in just 21 seconds. Shane Vandehei won by a decision, 6-2.
That loss put the Huskies into the consolation bracket, but the competition wasn’t much easier as they faced last year’s Classic champion, Banks. They performed even better though they lost 46-27. The match opened with John Sutten’s first round pin at 103 pounds and closed with Rob Martin’s fall, also in the first round. In between, Bryan Corliss picked up a decision and Tomas Rosa, whom Thorpe thought had a break out tournament, recorded a second round pin.
Thorpe also felt Brian Lindsay had a good match, even though he was pinned in the third round by the third ranked wrestler in the state.
The Huskies claimed seventh place after they handled Tillamook easily 58-22. The Huskies had four wins by forfeit but also picked up fall points when Daniel Smith, Brandon Martin, and Travis Smith each picked up their first wins of the day. Tagle added a second victory by decision while Rosa and Rob Martin each picked up another pin. For Martin, it was a big win in his toughest match of the weekend. The match was 0-0 after the first round before Martin finally caught him with a pin combination 40 seconds into the second round.
“Our kids responded well,” said Thorpe. “To come out with 7th, I’m not disappointed at all.”
But now the push is on, says Thorpe, as the Huskies head into league competition. He considers the league to be tougher, starting with Stayton whom Sweet Home faces next Thursday.
“We don’t have the luxury to take time off to get healthy or mend,” said Thorpe. “We have to wrestle through it because everything we do now has an effect on district seeding.”
And even though the league competition will be tougher, especially considering that the Huskies are younger, Thorpe sees promising signs because of their work ethic.
“I have a lot of confidence in the guys with the way they are training,” said Thorpe.
To help them get used to the idea of back to back days of competition, Thorpe has the Huskies wrestling again on Friday at home in a meet to make up for matches missed. One of the opponents will be Scio, but they hope to have at least one or two more schools in the area attend to make it a three or four way meet.