Having shoved the pain of a wrongly-wrenched arm as far back in his mind as possible, Taylor Winch not only went on to pull a victory (an 8-7 decision) from likely defeat against Monte Vista's Mario Dominguez last Thursday, but clinched a 3A/2A Intermountain League home dual win over the Pirates.
"It meant a lot," said BHS 113-pounder Cody Speece, who'd helped the cause with a second-period pin of Carlos Chacon. "To see someone fight, even under so much pain.it sets an example for the rest of us, I think."
Winch's decision to do so was well-timed; the 2016 Rob Mickel Memorial Invitational's opening rounds were to begin in just over 36 hours in Salida. And just before leaving still-buzzing BHS Gymnasium, the senior 138-pounder made a prediction about the upcoming meet: "We'll have at least seven kids up on the podium again, if not all," he said. "Everyone has the potential to be up on the podium! If we all wrestle like we can, then there's no reason why we shouldn't win the tournament."
Had it not been for an excellent showing by 2A Cedaredge, Winch would have been right on the mark.
Overall, Bayfield had eight wrestlers place, but the Wolverines had to settle for second in the standings, with their 173.5 points trailing the Bruins' 197. 2A Ignacio piled up a third-place 147.5, with 2A Del Norte (139) and 3A Basalt (109.5) rounding out the top five.
"I think we're starting to show up.better as the season goes on, and hopefully we'll keep it up!" Speece had said before the event. In hindsight, he was quite accurate, with teammates Ryan Nava, Sam Westbrook and Garrett Beebe all earning individual championships.
Recipient of forfeit points in each of his two bouts, Beebe at last saw action at 126 in Salida and took full advantage of the competition.
Going 3-0 at the Mickel after a first-round bye, the sophomore finished first via a 6-2 defeat of 2A Dolores soph Austin Hackney.
Nava also went 3-0 and took first at 145 via a pin (in 1:28) of 3A Colorado Springs Christian's Jake Bedford. He bounced back from a tough dual loss, albeit up a weight, at 152, to Monte Vista's Jose Lopez,
En route to being named the meet's Upper Weight Outstanding Wrestler, Westbrook was a 4-0 force at heavyweight with his last three wins by pin-he'd started with a 6-0 defeat of Cedaredge's Taj VanDerLee-and 2A Manzanola's J.D. Chamblin the last to fall (in an elapsed 3:04).
Cash Snooks and Macoy Michaeli each went 2-1 and placed second-at 170, and 160 pounds respectively-and 132-pounder Jake Sandrey went 3-1 to score more runner-up points. At 138, Winch went 3-1 and took third place with a pin in just 50 seconds of 2A Center's Juan Nungaray.
Speece had the hard luck of facing IHS' Stocker Robbins right off the bat at 113, but rapidly recovered from a loss to book four straight victories and save fifth place with an 8-5 defeat of Basalt's Nathan Rivera.
Colby Baker went 1-2 at 106 pounds, Nate Howell 0-2 at 120, Lane Grimwood 0-2 at 152, Dakota Ehart 0-2 at 220 and Koby Ross 0-2 as an 'unattached' entrant at 145.
Speece's post-dual comments again could have been made concerning BHS' work at the RMMI:
"We had a little bit of things I think we could correct, always, but we get that kind of work in the room," he'd said. "So other than that I thought we.came out awake in my opinion. Overall we did pretty good."
This weekend the Wolverines will compete at the Friday-Saturday Sand Devil Classic in Page, Arizona.
