Chiefs get early test at Inland Empire Invite

SPOKANE - Early season tests are always deemed as vital to a team's eventual maturation over the future months.

The Moses Lake Chiefs wrestling team travelled to Central Valley High School on Friday and Saturday to take part at the Inland Empire Tournament and found itself face-to-face with some of the better teams in the northwest.

After the smoke cleared the Chiefs returned home with a seventh-place finish, accumulating 114 points.

University High of Spokane won the tournament with a score of 192, while Post Falls (187), Central Valley (176), Hermiston (Ore.) (176), and Mead (159.5), made up the top five.

Coeur d'alene (155 points) finished sixth.

"It was a very, very tough early tournament," Moses Lake head coach Jamie Wise said. "Three of the teams were state championship teams from last year and had a lot of their wrestlers back."

University High was the Class 4A champions in 2010, while Hermiston and Coeur d'alene also won big school titles in their respective states.

The individual highlight of the Chiefs' trip east was the performance of 145-pounder Nico Moreno.

He captured his weight class' title with a third-round pin of Tyler Booth of Post Falls with 11 seconds remaining in the match and trailing on points.

"Nico's win coming from behind was a great one," Wise said. "The guy got high and Nico pulled him under, backed him up, and stuck him. He battled well."

Moreno's three match wins heading into the final came via a composite score of 36-3.

Defending Class 4A heavyweight champion Kabe Fluaitt, recorded a second-place finish for the Chiefs in his weight class.

Fluaitt was pinned by Aaron Christensen (East Valley, Yakima) in the later stages of the third round.

"Kabe had a good performance but he just got caught," Wise said. "Instead of stalling he was aggressive and got caught. I'd rather have him to do that and learn from it and that something like that happen early in the season."

Fluaitt recorded two pins in the opening rounds and beat Brady Simpson of Richland, 5-2 in the semifinals.

Moses Lake and Richland meet tonight on the Bombers' home mat.

Lind-Ritzville transfer, senior Herson Rodriguez, continued his strong performances for the Chiefs with a third-place finish at 140-pounds.

Rodriguez brings Class 2B state champions pedigree with him from Ritzville.

"He always moves, he's always hustling," Wise said. "He's very athletic and can really scramble."

Rodriguez lost a 5-3 semifinal decision to Coeur d'alene's Kenny Staub.

Beau Gleed took fifth at 119-pounds in his first action of the season.

"Technically he looks petty good," Wise said. "He just has some things he needs to work on right now. He was sick three days last week, so that kind of hurt."

Also Jonathan Perales finished sixth at 189-pounds.

"Even wrestling under weight as he is, he is really battling," Wise said of Perales. "He really is wrestling very tough at 178, 180-pounds, so he is underweight quite a bit."

Overall, the Chiefs have performed well with illness and injuries, including one that had kept Brian Chamberlain, the reigning 215-pound, Class 4A champion, out of action until after Christmas.

"It was a third-day out in a row after wrestling Wenatchee Thursday, and some of our kids were fatigued," Wise said. "It was a pretty good outing and we learned a lot about ourselves and what we need to fix. The kids battled really well."