Wrestling: Warriors get season started

OKANOGAN - A late start to the season may have set the Almira/Coulee-Hartline wrestlers back a bit but some may not have guessed this as so over the weekend.

The Warriors traveled to the Okanogan Tournament on Saturday and according to head coach Brandon Walsh, acquitted themselves quite well.

"I thought that we wrestled pretty well on Saturday especially considering that most of the kids are behind almost all the other teams because of our late start due to football," Walsh said. "Some of the veteran kids did a nice job of just picking up where they left off last season, I was happy to see some early improvement from where we were a year ago."

The ACH football team played through the Class 1B semifinals which ended on Nov. 26, setting the wrestlers from that squad two weeks back in practice time.

The highlight was the Warriors four, individual third-place finishes.

Trevor McCleary (130-pounds), Tyler Weimerskirch (135-pounds), Brandon Buche (215-pounds), and Jesse Billups (285-pounds), all took home third-place honors with a combined 8-4 record.

Billups overcame an opening round 6-4 loss to pin his last three opponents.

Tucker Matthewson captured fourth place at 140-pounds while Cody Payne also ended up fourth at the 145-pound weight class.

RC Carstensen (152-pounds), Ean Hobbs (160-pounds), and Zach Correll (285-pounds) all wrestled but did not place.

"This is a pretty young team and I have a good group of freshmen and sophomores," Walsh said. "It's going to be a lot of fun seeing how they grow and progress throughout the season.  They're working hard right now and I'm expecting good things from here on out."