Ephrata wallops Wapato in last dual meet of season

EPHRATA - The Tigers wrapped up the CWAC dual-meet season with a 57-21 victory over winless Wapato Thursday night.

While Ephrata proved to be the much stronger team by the end of the night, the Tigers found themselves trailing early in the dual.

After losing the 103-pound match by pin, the Tigers needed Mitchell Friend to answer back in his 112-pound bout, which the Ephrata sophomore did in exciting fashion.

Early in the match, Wapato's Eddie Flores went in on a takedown attempt, but Friend used an excellent sprawl to defend the attack and eventually scramble around Flores for the first points of the match. Later in the bout, the same takedown defense would pay big dividends for the Ephrata wrestler.

Flores scored an escape and a takedown in the final 16 seconds of the first round to grab a 3-2 lead over Friend.

Friend began the second round in the bottom position, from which he stood up in hopes of earning an escape. With Friend having nearly completed his escape, Flores dropped down and grabbed the Ephrata wrestlers' leg, hoping to take Friend back down to the mat.

Friend quickly sprawled his legs back, putting Flores in an awkward position. Seeing the Wapato wrestler out of position, Friend threw Flores to his back and locked up a head-and-arm. After a brief struggle, the Ephrata wrestler ended the match with a fall.

"Mitchell has had a tough time winning those scrambles," said Ephrata coach Dave Laird. "He finally got one. That was a big win for him."

After Wapato took a 9-6 lead on Gustavo Lopez's 7-2 win over Kurt Nygard at 119 pounds, Jake Horn started a streak of Tiger wins that put to an end any notion of an upset by the Wolves.

Horn picked up a third-round pin of the Wolves' John Weaver at 125 pounds to give Ephrata a 12-9 lead.

Following Horn, Quinton Hendrickson added to the Ephrata lead with a 29-second pin of Wapato's Francisco Palacios. Hendrickson, with a standing front head-and-arm, shot under the Wapato wrestler to lock up a bottom-leg cradle that led to the quick pin.

"When he hits stuff, he just hits it so hard," said Laird of Hendrickson's explosive move.

At 140 pounds, freshman Chris Davidson found himself in trouble early into his bout with Wapato's Jaymar Imperial. Davidson was taken down and nearly caught on his back 15 seconds into the match.

However, midway through the second round, Davidson fended off a bodylock from the standing position and countered with a head-and-arm that netted the Ephrata wrestler 5 points and a 7-5 lead. The Tiger grappler earned a 2-point near-fall at the end of the round, and then held Imperial down for the duration of the third round on his way to a 12-6 victory.

"He does some good things, but he's just young," said Laird of Davidson. "He started to make some mistakes (early in the match), but he corrected them."

In other highlights for the Tigers, Dallas Hintz had the quickest pin of the night, ending his 171-pound match with Wapato's Joshua Carbajal in just 23 seconds. Jake Torgeson followed Hintz with a first round pin of Wapato's Ricardo Ruiz at 189 pounds.

With Thursday's victory, Ephrata finished the season with a 5-4 record in the CWAC.

Ephrata 57, Wapato 21

103 - Luis Gomez (W) pin Anthony Bush, 3:38; 112 - Mitchell Friend (E) pin Eddie Flores, 2:35; 119 - Gustavo Lopez (W) dec Kurt Nygard, 7-2; 125 - Jake Horn (E) pin John Weaver, 5:18; 130 - Quinton Hendrickson (E) pin Francisco Palacios, 0:29; 135 - Tyson Hubbard (E) win by forfeit; 140 - Chris Davidson (E) dec Jaymar Imperial, 12-6; 145 - Robert Motzkus (E) win by forfeit; 152 - Ryan Cross (E) win by forfeit; 160 - Scott Henson (E) win by forfeit; 171 - Dallas Hintz (E) pin Joshua Carbajal, 0:23; 189 - Jake Torgeson (E) pin Ricardo Ruiz, 1:00; 215 - Kyle Harrington (W) pin David Repp, 1:35; 285 - Jordan Littlebull (W) pin Mike Beck, 5:23.