Pinning combination
Jamie Shell / (sports@averyjournal.com)
Avery High School was flooded with many of the region's top grapplers on Friday, Feb. 3, when the Vikings played host to the 2012 Western Highlands Conference Wrestling Tournament. At evening's end, AHS wrestler Harley Rash placed third in the 126-pound weight class.
The big winner for the event was Owen High School. The Warhorses was regular season conference dual champions and emerged from the conference tournament as team champion by a narrow margin of three points, ahead of Mitchell.
Owen also collected a number of individual accolades, as wrestlers Jordan Welch (106 pounds), John Luke Sapp (145 pounds), Matt Tamari (152 pounds), Paul Redmon (160 pounds), Michael Langlois (170 pounds), Cole Leighton (182 pounds) and Jose Garcia (heavyweight) were each crowned conference champions.
Tamari was selected Most Outstanding Wrestler, with Owen head coach Jeff Foster named Coach of the Year.
At the end of the evening, Avery head wrestling coach Stacey Clark praised the work of many Avery wrestling supporters who helped make the tournament a success.
"I thought we put together a really nice tournament. Sherman Andrews did a great job of heading everything up for us. We had our middle school coaches and assistant coaches, along with middle school wrestlers and club wrestlers running the tables and they did a great job," Clark said. "All of the workers and several of the parents volunteered, with Merritt and Sara Yackey volunteering to run the head scorer's table. It's a great group of people who each did their job well and made it really easy to host a good tournament."
Clark was pleased with the efforts of his wrestlers who competed, and he witnessed positive achievements from his group.
"Harley was our best wrestler overall, as our only medalist. Blake Johnson picked up his first career win here at the conference tournament, and that's a difficult place to earn your first win," Clark explained. "He's moving in the right direction."
Although the Vikings has not experienced the level of success it hoped for at the season's beginning, the squad continues to move forward in improvement and gleaned valuable experience through competition.
"We have some good wrestlers in our conference, with a couple of state champion hopefuls," Clark added. "Our guys measure up with some people in the conference and not so well with others. However, every match is a learning experience and with a lot of sophomores and older wrestlers with only limited experience, we've been educated quite a bit this year. We're looking to build on the experiences from this season and work to get better in the future."
Avery's wrestling future is bright, with the formation of Dogtown Wrestling Club for youth wrestlers and resurgence in middle school wrestling. Clark explained how the future of Avery wrestling benefited from last week's tournament.
"Part of the reason we agreed to host this year's tournament is due to our youth and middle school programs locally," Clark said. "Our middle school program is getting stronger every day. Having those kids at this event and exposing them to quality high school wrestling, and letting them work with running mats and the entire aspect of a tournament just spurs their interest. It helps as a recruiting tool and helps them go back to school talking about how great a time they had at the tournament. We hope this can build us back to where we used to be."
The Vikings take this week off in preparation for 1A Western Regional, which takes place on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 17 and 18, at Isothermal Community College near Forest City.
The big winner for the event was Owen High School. The Warhorses was regular season conference dual champions and emerged from the conference tournament as team champion by a narrow margin of three points, ahead of Mitchell.
Owen also collected a number of individual accolades, as wrestlers Jordan Welch (106 pounds), John Luke Sapp (145 pounds), Matt Tamari (152 pounds), Paul Redmon (160 pounds), Michael Langlois (170 pounds), Cole Leighton (182 pounds) and Jose Garcia (heavyweight) were each crowned conference champions.
Tamari was selected Most Outstanding Wrestler, with Owen head coach Jeff Foster named Coach of the Year.
At the end of the evening, Avery head wrestling coach Stacey Clark praised the work of many Avery wrestling supporters who helped make the tournament a success.
"I thought we put together a really nice tournament. Sherman Andrews did a great job of heading everything up for us. We had our middle school coaches and assistant coaches, along with middle school wrestlers and club wrestlers running the tables and they did a great job," Clark said. "All of the workers and several of the parents volunteered, with Merritt and Sara Yackey volunteering to run the head scorer's table. It's a great group of people who each did their job well and made it really easy to host a good tournament."
Clark was pleased with the efforts of his wrestlers who competed, and he witnessed positive achievements from his group.
"Harley was our best wrestler overall, as our only medalist. Blake Johnson picked up his first career win here at the conference tournament, and that's a difficult place to earn your first win," Clark explained. "He's moving in the right direction."
Although the Vikings has not experienced the level of success it hoped for at the season's beginning, the squad continues to move forward in improvement and gleaned valuable experience through competition.
"We have some good wrestlers in our conference, with a couple of state champion hopefuls," Clark added. "Our guys measure up with some people in the conference and not so well with others. However, every match is a learning experience and with a lot of sophomores and older wrestlers with only limited experience, we've been educated quite a bit this year. We're looking to build on the experiences from this season and work to get better in the future."
Avery's wrestling future is bright, with the formation of Dogtown Wrestling Club for youth wrestlers and resurgence in middle school wrestling. Clark explained how the future of Avery wrestling benefited from last week's tournament.
"Part of the reason we agreed to host this year's tournament is due to our youth and middle school programs locally," Clark said. "Our middle school program is getting stronger every day. Having those kids at this event and exposing them to quality high school wrestling, and letting them work with running mats and the entire aspect of a tournament just spurs their interest. It helps as a recruiting tool and helps them go back to school talking about how great a time they had at the tournament. We hope this can build us back to where we used to be."
The Vikings take this week off in preparation for 1A Western Regional, which takes place on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 17 and 18, at Isothermal Community College near Forest City.