Coming off their first league dual meet loss in years — to Cascade on Jan. 5 in their own gym— Sweet Home’s wrestlers got back on track last week with a 63-3 victory at Molalla on Thursday, Jan. 12, followed by a third-place finish in the Oregon Classic tournament Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13-14, in Redmond.
“I thought we wrestled really well,” said coach Steve Thorpe of the Oregon Classic performance.
The Huskies opened on Friday with an 81-0 win over Central, which will be a Valco League opponent starting next season, recording 13 falls en route to the victory.
“Trevor Tagle was only guy who didn’t pin his kid,” said Thorpe, noting that Tagle beat Vladi Petersen, who took second in state last year, ahead of Tagle, who was third. “We put some together some good matches.”
The Huskies went on to beat Madras 51-21 and Cottage Grove 51-18 to make Saturday’s championship bracket.
In the semifinals, Sweet Hoome faced the state’s top-ranked 3A team, Estacada, and lost 49-21.
“Estacada matched up well for us. They’re a real solid team.,” Thorpe said. “They are really good on the upper end.”
The Huskies showed their mettle in the third-place match against Burns, defeating the three-time returning state champions 37-36 as 275-pounder Matt Parker pinned his opponent with 24 seconds left in the match to give Sweet Home the edge.
I’m really happy how we competed against Burns,” Thorpe said. “We had kids that should have been pinned that weren’t. They lost by a technical fall or by points, instead. I can’t say enough how proud I was how we competed.”
In addition to Parker, Thorpe noted that Shorty Weikel beat some ranked wrestlers and Tom Helfrich beat second-ranked Justin Benson of Cottage Grove. Aris Somatis and John Sutten also distinguished themselves, he said.
“We didn’t go undefeated but we competed as a team and we did a lot of things we need to do right now to achieve what we want to achieve,” he said.
At the nine-team Taft Tournament, also on Saturday, Feb. 14, Sweet Home’s junior varsity wrestlers finished with 176 points behind Philomath’s 205. Toledo and Taft finished third and fourth with 163 and 144.5 respectively.
Levi Weikel won the 135-pound title with a 5-4 victory over Kyle Beatty of Taft. Second-place finishers for the Huskies were Jake Smith (119) and Casey Hanscam (130). Third-place finishers were Danny Johnson (112), Derek Sharp (125), Leif Erickson (130), Josh Ward (140), Nick Pitts (145) and Sawyer Anderson (152).
At Molalla, on Thursday, Weikel got the Huskies off to a rolling start with a pin at 152 pounds “and then we started pinning people,” Thorpe said. Sahw Valentine, “a very inexperienced wrestler who has been working very hard,” has been wrestling better. “It’s starting to pay off for him,” Thorpe said.
The Huskies will face North Marion and Culver, the state’s top-ranked 2A team, which won its division at the Oregon Classic, at 6 p.m. Thursday in the new gym. Junior varsity action will begin at 5 p.m. Sweet Home will then compete in the Seaside Pacific Rim Tournament, an individual competition, and the biggest 3A tournament in the state, on Friday and Saturday.
Sweet Home 63, Molalla 3
103 — Chris Farris (SH) won by forfeit; 112 — Stephen Kaster (M) def. Aris Somatis (SH) 4-2; 119 — Jack Perry (SH) pinned Cody McCance, 1:23; 125 — Jake Smith (SH) won by forfeit; 130 — John Sutten (SH) def. Drew Roberts (M) 3-1; 135 — Shane Vandehei (SH) pinned Cody Weishoff (M) 3:23; 140 — Trevor Tagle (SH) pinned Cody Taylor (M) 1:35; 145 — Tom Helfrich (SH) def. Kenny Early (M), 9-6; 152 — Shorty Weikel pinned Alex George 3:32; 160 — Rob Helfrich (SH) def. Andrew Kuznetsov 8-3; 171 — Colton Cooley (SH) pinned Hollister Stevenson 1:36; 189 — Joey Ellis pinned TJ Jenck 1:23; 215 Shaw Valentine def. C. T. Lattrell 12-7; 275 Matt Parker pinned Arynn Leighton :59.