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Heavyweight headliner

Pine River Rivalry dual comes down to the wire

IGNACIO – The last match of the night decided Bayfield High School and Ignacio High School’s Pine River Rivalry wrestling dual Friday at the SunUte Community Center.

Iassic Peña faced Cash Snooks at 152 pounds with the Bobcats leading 29-28. Peña established an early 2-1 lead over Snooks and held on for a 5-3 win.

“Work everything we’ve been working on in the wrestling room. We’ve been working hard,” said Peña, son of Kenneth and Shasta Peña, of his mindset. “I was more focused on what I had to do for myself. That’d make the team good.”

That handed IHS the dual 32-28.

The Bobcats benefited from two forfeits, while BHS received one.

“I’m very pleased with how we wrestled tonight. You take away the forfeits on both sides, and we outwrestled them,” BHS head coach Todd McMenimen said.

Miguesl Perez opened the match for IHS by pinning Bayfield’s Austin Bachmann with 47 seconds remaining in the first period.

That brought the heavyweight class up after two IHS forfeits, a rematch of the Salida championship between Ignacio’s Josh Gallegos and Bayfield’s Sam Westbrook.

Both kept the match standing throughout an uneventful first period. Westbrook worked from the bottom in the second period to take a 5-0 lead after a near fall and takedown. He locked in the pin with 1 minute, 36 seconds left.

“He kind of came up over the top of me and he was too far over top, so I just reached over my shoulder and laid on him,” said Westbrook, son of Kirstin and Mark Westbrook. “All day, it’s all I’ve been thinking about is this match.”

Garrett Beebe kept Bayfield’s pin streak going at 106 pounds when he took down Ignacio’s Wyatt Mickas with 36.4 seconds left in the first period.

Ignacio’s Stocker Robbins pinned Garrett Beebe at 113 pounds with 36.6 seconds left in the first period.

Bayfield’s Ryan Nava wrestled up to 132 pounds to face Ignacio’s Tyler Beebe. Nava took a 7-1 lead after the first period and extended it to 16-8 by the end of the match.

Ignacio’s Ethan Appenzeller pinned Bayfield’s Jake Jensen 42 seconds into their 138-pound match.

Colter McMenimen locked down Bayfield’s last pin of the match with 25.2 seconds remaining in the first period.

“We had some good battles against Bayfield,” IHS head coach Cody Haga said. “Overall, i thought the dual was great for both teams. That’s the kind of matches we need to prepare for the regional tournament.

Two light appetizers preceded the main event.

Both BHS and IHS wrestled duals against a three-man Rangely squad before facing each other.

The Demons brought as many managers as wrestlers. That gave BHS a numbers advantage for the first time in the last two years in a dual.

McMenimen locked in a technical fall with a near fall at the first quarter buzzer to win 20-3 at 145 pounds, and Cash Snooks secured his own technical fall with two seconds left at 152 pounds, winning 17-2.

The Wolverines received seven total forfeits and gave up one to win 52-6.

IHS received eight forfeits in a 54-3 win over Rangely, splitting the two matches it actually wrestled.

Dalton Mickey lost 10-3 at 145 pounds, and Iassic Peña pinned his opponent with 5.4 seconds left in the first period.

All three teams will be back Saturday for the Butch Melton Invitational, which starts at 9 a.m. at the SunUte Community Center.

“Our goal (Saturday) is to get all the kids four to five matches,” Haga said. “Everyone that’s going to be stepping on this mat (Saturday) is pushing toward that regional tournament, so that’s the objective behind getting a lot of mat time and a lot of matches.”

kgrabowski@durangoherald.com



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