Two Tigers take second at Mat Classic

TACOMA — Ephrata took two wrestlers to state and both wrestled their ways into the finals.

Jake Horn, wrestling at 125 pounds, and Dallas Hintz, wrestling at 152 pounds, both swept through their early matches to make the finals.

"Both of them wrestled extremely well this weekend," said Ephrata head coach Dave Laird. "Both of them controlled their matches.

"I'm disappointed in how things turned out for them," Laird added.

Horn began the weekend wrestling against Mike Varnell of Sultan and defeated him easily with a 12-1 victory.

In the second round of matches Friday, Horn beat Mike Tran of R.A. Long 8-0 to advance to the semi-finals Saturday.

"Both of them beat some solid kids to get into the finals," said Laird.

In the semi-finals, Horn won handily against Dawson Patrick of Mt. Baker 17-6 to earn a spot in the finals.

Horn lost 5-4 to Jimmy Belleville in the finals to finish second.

"We knew it (the finals) was going to be tight like that," said Laird. "Jake gave up that takedown and we didn't need that."

Hintz started the weekend with a pin of Nate Libolt of Lynden in the first round.

In the second round he won 9-2 over Kirby White of W.F. West.

In Saturday's semi-finals, Hintz pinned Kyle Brown of Mt. Baker to qualify for the finals.

Hintz fell 10-7 to Derek Driscoll of W.F. West in the finals to take second.

"We thought we had a good plan," said Laird. "The 2-point near fall Dallas gave up near the end of the second round was huge. We didn't think he could turk Dallas but he did and it's hard to get out of that. Dallas had a good chance. It just didn't go his way."