Sweet Home’s wrestlers hit the road Friday and came home with a tournament win over defending state champion Tillamook at the Perry Burlison Memorial Tournament at Cascade.
The Huskies finished with 232.5 points, followed by Tillamook with 207, Cascade (179), Lebanon (141) and McMinnville ((139.5). Also competing in the tournament were Pleasant Hill, Rainier, Banks, Marist, Philomath, Elmira and Junction City.
“It was nice beating Tillmook,” Coach Steve Thorpe said. “I’ll tell you what, though, it was just as nice beating Cascade and Lebanon.”
Four Huskies won their divisions: Tyler Holly at 112, Taylor Tagle at 130, Kris Newport at 135 and Brock Crocker at 145.
Crocker was named the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler for the upper weight divisions (145-285) after pinning two opponents and “dominating” his opponent in the final, Thorpe said.
He said he was “impressed” with Tagle’s performance.
“He’s starting to realize that he can wrestle with those bigger guys,” Thorpe said.
“I’ll tell you what we did, we just had kids that wrestled hard,” he said. “Even some of the guys who got seconds and thirds wrestled hard. I was very proud of that.”
Mitch Grove took second at 119 and Marc Callagan was runner-up at 215. Third-place winners were Matt Grove at 125, Kyle Hummer at 140 and Anthony Albright at 189.
Other place-winners were freshman Scottie Stockman, fifth at 103; freshman Hunter Bidwell, fifth at 119; Marshall Arndt, fifth at 135; and Nikki Smith, fourth at 140.
Thorpe said the quality competition in successive weight categories is helping the Huskies in the practice room.
“It’s nice to have good wrestlers back to back,” he said. “These guys wrestle each other every day.”
Sweet Home, as of Sunday, is ranked second in the state, behind Scappoose, while Tillamook dropped to fourth, with LeGrande in third.
The Huskies have yet to be at full strength, as they are missing Jack Perry, who is recovering from an injury, and Brad Pitts, who is getting over mononucleosis.
“All of our kids competed well,” Thorpe said of the tournament. “They supported one another. At this point of the year, that’s what I look at. We don’t have to win every match; we don’t have to beat everybody. A lot of what we’re doing is building for later on.”
The Huskies’ four-team tournament, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 16, has been postponed due to weather, Thorpe said. It will be rescheduled. The Huskies are scheduled to wrestle at the Sheldon Tournament Saturday.
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The Sweet Home Junior High team won the Cascade Junior High Invitiational on Saturday.
The Tigers took 33 wrestlers to the tournament, which included seven other district teams preparing for the district finals to be held Dec. 20 in Dallas.
Sweet Home finished first with 319 points followed by Cascade with 312 and Dallas with 285. Sweet Home had nine wrestlers in the finals and came away with six champions: Tyler Schilling at 75 pounds; Colton Schilling at 90; Mat Pitts at 95; Trever Olson at 122, Wade Paulus at 175 and Zak Gill at 225. Runner-ups were at Brandon Keenon at 85 pounds, Nate Mlcher at 129 and Jake Smith at 145.