By Teren Kowatsch
Whitman County Gazette 

County wrestlers compete in league meet

Colfax hosts 1B/2B league wrestling meet.

 

January 12, 2023

Teren Kowatsch | The Gazette

Joshua "Mathew" Gamez wrestles Northwest Christian's Sam Young in a league wrestling meet Jan. 5 in Colfax.

COLFAX — 1B and 2B schools went to Colfax on Jan. 5 to compete in a boys wrestling league meet.

Tekoa-Rosalia, Garfield-Palouse and Colfax were all represented.

Although the meet was originally scheduled to be a boys league meet, some schools brought their girl wrestlers to compete, including Colfax with Grace Jones and Garfield-Palouse with Laynie Southern.

Southern went 1-0 in her lone match at the meet, winning via first-round fall against Davenport’s Emma Cash.

Grace Jones went 1-1 in two matches at the meet, losing her first to Reardan’s Vaea LaMoureaux by pin in the second round.

Jones evened up her record against Cash in her second match, pinning her Davenport opponent in 38 seconds in the first round.

Garfield-Palouse’s other wrestler, Walker Montgomery, went 0-1 in his lone wrestling match of the evening.

Montgomery lost via third-round fall to Davenport’s Brendan Peters-Biggs, but put on a strong performance, going almost a full three rounds after needing a break to use his inhaler during the match.

Tekoa-Rosalia had two wrestlers, Bryce Casey and Joshua “Matthew” Gamez, compete in the meet. Casey had two matches and Gamez had three.

The Timberwolves went 1-4 with the lone win coming from Gamez, who pinned Northwest Christian’s Sam Young in 31 seconds.

Gamez’s two losses came against Liberty’s (Spangle) Strobel brothers – Ashton and Maddex.

Maddex ranks fourth in the 145-lb. weight class for Washington 1B schools and Ashton ranks second in the 152-lb. weight class.

Gamez was able to put a competitive effort against both Strobel brothers, but wasn’t able to get a win on either, being pinned by Ashton in 3:26 and suffering another pin against Maddex in 4:24.

Gamez talked about things he could improve on regarding his losses to the Strobel brothers.

“I don’t drive hard enough,” Gamez said. “I feel like I get too confident after the first match after pinning someone and I get cocky. And then it all just gets to me when I’m on that mat.”

Casey went 0-2 in his matches, being pinned in 46 seconds to Reardan’s Tristan Zagorski in his first and losing via fall in 2:46 to Reardan’s Troy Routh.

Casey shared his teammate’s self-criticism after the meet.

“Honestly, I don’t have anything good that I did,” Casey said. “It seems like everyone’s a lot taller than me, so I definitely need to keep people close. I feel like that’s the main thing.”

In addition to the self-observations from their matches at the meet, Casey and Gamez both detailed key takeaways that they can take into the next competition.

“Have confidence in myself,” Casey said. “Keep my eyes open, look up, keep my head up, stuff like that.”

“I need to work on sitting out and standing up,” Gamez said. “I feel like I’m not fast enough when it comes to it. They get a certain arm on my stomach or get a tight-waist while I’m down there, they’ll break down my arms and I can’t get my arms up enough to where I have the confidence to push myself out of that position, because a couple times I got into a sitout and they were able to hold me down and I couldn’t get out.”

Remaining wrestlers from Colfax went a combined 2-3 in five

matches.

Cooper Phillips went 2-0 with wins over Liberty’s Ren Wakai and Reardan’s Torin Zagorski.

Wyatt Southern went 0-2 in his matches, suffering a pin to Northwest Christian’s Aiden Indahl and losing to Tristan Zagorski via second-round fall.

Tristin Burd went 0-1 in his lone match of the night, a pin loss to Reardan’s Carson Durbin.

Tekoa-Rosalia’s boys competed at the Blackhawk Invite on Jan. 7 in Cheney. Casey went 0-2 in the Invitational and Gamez did not compete.

Tekoa-Rosalia, Garfield-Palouse and Colfax’s girl wrestlers competed at a league meet in Newport on Jan. 10.

Tekoa-Rosalia’s Alexis Taylor went 2-0, winning her first match at the Newport league meet via 10-0 majority decision and her second via first-round pin.

Southern went 0-2 in her mathes and Jones and Hope Lyons-Baker went 2-2 for Colfax. Jones won her first match with a pin and Lyons-Baker won her second via same method.

Whitman County’s male athletes will next be in action Jan. 12 at a league meet in Davenport.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Our Family of Publications Includes:

Cheney Free Press
Ritzville Adams County Journal
Whitman County Gazette
Odessa Record
Franklin Connection
Davenport Times
Spokane Valley News Herald
Colfax Daily Bulletin

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024