Raiders wrestle in Okanogan and Warden

Raiders wrestled in the Brewster Mix & Match last Tuesday, then in a Warden tournament on Saturday.

The Brewster Mix & Match is without brackets and team points, but is rather an opportunity for wrestlers to gain experience. Three Raiders participated in the Brewster event, each wrestling two opponents, and each winning both of their matches.

Raider Kaleb Horn’s first opponent was Okanogan’s Will Clark, whom Horn defeated with two takedowns, five near falls, and an escape, for a “technical fall” with a final score of 18-1. Horn’s next opponent was Michael Lewis of Oroville, whom Horn also defeated by technical fall (a lead of 15 or more points) with a score of 17-2.

Raider Jon Shelly pinned Oroville’s Roger Castillo in three minutes, then defeated Brendan Warren of Okanogan 11-2.

Raider Tony Nichols defeated Oroville’s Hunter Devon with four takedowns and three near falls, winning by technical fall 16-1. Nichols then won 9-3 against Seal Parks Eply of Okanogan with three takedowns and an escape.

In the Jeremiah Schmunk Invitational in Warden, six Raiders wrestled, with two of them wrestling exhibitions and four of them wrestling for team points in the brackets. The Raiders placed seventh out of nine teams, with 56 points from the four. Tonasket won the event with 171.5 points from 18 wrestlers.

Nichols won first place in the 145-pound division, pinning Keyan Francois of Connell, winning 9-4 against Zion Butler of Tonasket, then 5-2 against Austin Rimestad, also of Tonasket.

“He wrestled well against quality wrestlers, so those are good wins for him,” remarked Raider Head Coach Steve Hood.

Following a bye round, Horn lost to Devin Walton of Tonasket, but then pinned Abraham Suarez of Warden in two minutes and 16 seconds, and gained a win against Gerardo Morales of Connell, who was disqualified. Horn took third place at 120.

“Kaleb had the upper hand against this guy, who beat him last year, but the other guy lost his cool and got disqualified,” Hood said. “Kaleb had a good day.”

Raider Steven Flowers took fourth at 195. Flowers pinned Dylan Kalma of Tonasket before losing to Luke Peebles of Kittitas. Flowers won by major decision, 18-8, against Brandon Baugher of Tonasket, but then fell to Devin Roberts of Riverview. Peebles and Roberts went on to take first and third in the bracket respectively.

Shelly placed sixth at 126. Shelly pinned Richard Gonzalez of Warden in the final seconds of their match up at 5:55, but lost to Espino of Pateros, Gomez of Connell, and Bretz of Tonasket.

The lone lady Raider wrestler, Ida Sue, pinned her opponent, Cathy of Pateros, twice in exhibition matches: first in 1:57, then again in 3:23.

Raider Taylor Circle went 1-1 in his exhibition matches against wrestlers from Connell and Riverview.

“It was a good competition,” Hood said. “Some of these weights, it was the best competition we’ve seen all season long, so we’re happy with the way the day turned out.”

The Raiders will travel all the way to Rainier, Washington, on Saturday for their next event, the aptly-named Rainier Tournament, where 16 teams will compete.

“We’ll see some of the west side B schools, as well as a number of west side A schools, which gives us a chance to see our potential state competition,” Hood said.

“Our whole season is designed around peeking into postseason, anything that we can do,” Hood said. “We’re constantly looking at how we’re matching up against who we’ll see later on and what we can do to improve that. A lot of what we’re doing in the coming weeks is helping our wrestlers learn how to come up with a specific match plan for a specific wrestler.”