Durango boys wrestling hosted three duals Wednesday night, taking on Fruita Monument and Montrose.
However, the Demons lost both duals against Fruita (66-15) and Montrose (33-31). Fruita also crushed Montrose 68-12.
“We came up short,” Durango assistant coach Jeremy Dugan said. “All of our guys wrestled really well, we just had tough competition.”
In CHSAA’s weekly boys wrestling rankings, Fruita was ranked third in Class 5A and Montrose was ninth in Class 4A’s state rankings.
Against Fruita, Ryan Dugan won his match in the 120-pound division against Fruita’s Gage Chelewski. Riley Belt won his match in the 145-pound division with a pin against Fruita’s Benjamin Romero in three minutes and 23 seconds.
Jacob Belt won his match in the 157-pound division by forfeit, and no other Demon won a match. Fruita won seven of its matches by pins.
Dugan fell behind early in a match against Montrose’s Gabe Hardin, who had two takedowns on Dugan in the first two periods. Hardin eventually beat Dugan 8-5 and put Montrose ahead 3-0.
“(Hardin), they wrestled before and he made the right adjustments, and Ryan didn’t make the mid-match adjustments that he needed to,” Jeremy Dugan said. “That’s what we want going into state, to start thinking more and analyzing our opponents better.”
Montrose extended its lead to 9-0 after Rian Reeder quickly took care of Durango’s Dillon Harris with a pin one minute and 49 seconds into that 126-pound division match.
But the Demons responded with back-to-back pins to retake the lead. Asher McKeanie pinned Montrose’s Holden Putnam in the 132-pound division after struggling initially, and Riley Belt pinned his opponent in the 138-pound division. From there, Durango retook the lead at 12-9.
“Riley has gotten really good at what we call chain wrestling, moving from one move to another and not giving his opponent time to readjust,” Dugan said. “He’s always been one of the best in the room with match flow.”
The pins kept coming from the Demons, with Wyatt Bartel finishing off his opponent with a pin one minute and 33 seconds into the match in the 144-pound division.
Jacob Belt won in his match in the 157-pound division with a nice takedown shortly before time expired to push the Demons’ overall lead to 21-15.
Multiple forfeits increased Durango’s lead to 27-21, before JJ Vickers got pinned by Montrose’s Nick Jennings in the 190-pound division to tie the dual at 27. Warren Uptain struggled with the speed of his opponent in the 285-pound division and was pinned, putting Montrose up 33-27.
In the final match of the night, Isaiah Aguilar controlled his match in the 113-pound division against Montrose’s Zach Quaid but couldn’t find the pin, and Montrose secured the victory.
The Demons will be at Ignacio on Saturday for the Butch Melton tournament.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
