Tfalls wrestles twice
Senior Zach Lyons finished fourth at 145 pounds at the Superior Tournament on Saturday.
In a busy week, the Blue Hawk wrestling team went on the road to duel Mission on Thursday before competing in the Superior Invitational on Saturday.
On Thursday, Thompson Falls fell 48-36 against St. Ignatius with six of their eight losses coming by pin.
The lone bright spots for the Blue Hawks were pins by Wade Gascon and Nick Adler. Gascon pinned 105 pound Dillon Edwards in 2:20 and Adler defeated Pete Dumont in 1:24.
“It was pretty disappointing wrestling by our whole team. We won three total matches on the night, and I thought we were pretty equal teams to start with,” Thompson Falls head coach Colby Cine said. “We talked about pride and not giving up pins and that kind of carried through to the weekend. On Saturday we wrestled a lot better.”
On Saturday despite being shorthanded, a rejuvenated Blue Hawk team put together a much better defeating Mission by finishing fifth out of 14 teams. Five of Cine’s wrestler reached the podium.
“A lot of it is mental,” Cine said. “Sometimes a good pep talk at the right time can change the results quite a bit.”
Freshman Gascon and Tyler Garrison came in second and fourth at 105 and 125 pounds respectively. Garrison’s performance was exceptional considering he had not wrestled prior to the tournament in his high school career.
119 pound sophomore John Gunderson took third place in possibly the tournaments toughest weight class fielding last year’s state champion Cody Ishler.
Seniors Zach Lions and Shawn Sacchi finished fourth at 145 pounds and second at 160 respectively. The wins game Sacchi 79 for his career.
Despite their success the Blue Hawks are far from full strength missing nine wrestler. Those absent ranged from seniors taking their ACT exams to others needing more practices to become match eligible.
The Blue Hawks will go on the road three times this week. First, on Tuesday at the Noxon Quad, and again on Thursday and Saturday in the Superior Quad and the Corvallis Tournament.
“We won’t get much for practice, but we’ll get a lot of wrestling time, which will be good,” Cine said.
Cine expressed concern for his wrestlers who will have to make weight three times this week. If any of the matches had fallen on back-to-back days, each wrestler would be forgiven one pound, but since there is a day in between each contest they won’t be afforded that luxury.
“It’s not a real big tournament, but Corvallis is a pretty quality team,” Cine said. “You’re going to have good kids in all the weight classes there.”