Wrestlers Medal at White Pine
The Incline Wrestling team took a select group of wrestlers to the White Pine Tournament on Friday and Saturday and came home feeling quite good about themselves. The tournament featured 15 teams, many of which will be vying for the State Title in late February, and gave Incline a good look at what the competition will be like.
The five Highlanders who competed all took home medals and managed to score 66 team points, good enough for 7th place in the team standings behind tournament champion Battle Mountain. White Pine and Eureka were the other 2A schools that finished ahead of Incline. It was a welcomed team placement for Incline, which was wrestling without 9 of its weight classes, as the depleted squad wrestled well enough to keep pace with most every school in the tournament.
Enrique Parra, stepping into the 152 pound weight class, had an exceptional tournament, placing 4th after finishing the weekend 4-3. He matured into a varsity caliber wrestler in the early part of this season and is now going to be able to compete at the higher level. He was able to keep all of his matches close and wear out some of his opponents. Enrique has a knack for learning on the fly, and hit several key moves in his matches that earned him the wins.
Jimmy Markman also placed 4th at 145 pounds. A couple of matches went nearly the full distance and could have gone either way with the change of a couple of moves in the match. He dominated when he had to though and showed that he is ready to establish himself as a key part of the Incline line up.
Cody Feliciano impressed enough of the coaches to earn the Most Outstanding Lower Weight award after pinning his Spring Creek opponent in the championship finals match at 112 pounds. Cody finished the weekend at 5-0 and used several impressive moves, including a spladle in the first day of competition against White Pine wrestler Daylin Rugierro. That type of move is dangerous and takes a lot of practice to master the set up, but Cody was able to bait his opponent into the right spot and earn the pin. His finals match was a fantastic display of scrambles and adjustments, finally getting the win after catching his opponent in a reversal of the russian roll.
Incline wrestler Travis Causey earned a third place medal at 130 pounds with a hard earned pin over Ryan Thompson of Battle Mountain in the consolation finals. Travis was 6-1 for the tournament with his only loss coming to Chase Stanton of White Pine in the semi finals.
Jesus Hernandez earned a fourth place medal at 125 pounds while finishing 5-3 overall. He suffered 2 tough losses to rival Battle Mountain opponent, Jace Ragland, which will no doubt make him work harder in practice.
Kevin Flanders competed in the 112 pound weight class.
