Moses Lake takes third at U-High

SPOKANE — A tradition of winning brings with it higher expectations.

For the Moses Lake High School wrestling team, those expectations reach epic levels.

This season nothing has changed but one thing coach Jamie Wise has noticed is a team slowly evolving into the one he hopes will be ready for the 2010 Mat Classic.

The Chiefs continued their progress this weekend, taking third with 155 points at the Pacific Northwest Classic at University High School in Spokane, this past Friday and Saturday.

U-High took the title with 244.5 points, ahead of Flathead, Mont. (215 points).

Othello finished seventh at the tournament with 117 points.

With the result, Moses Lake adds the accomplishment to its second place result at the Sierra Nevada Classic two weeks ago.

“We still have a long way to go to where I am going to be comfortable going into the post season but some of the kids are stepping up,” Wise said. “We have a couple of kids who are trying to put themselves in the right position for post season and I’m glad to see they are.”

Three Chiefs took individual titles at the tournament.

Beau Gleed captured the crown at 103-pounds, closing out his run over Ryan Gabel of U-High, 2-0 in an overtime battle.

“Beau wrestled very, very, well all through the tournament,” Wise said. “He had lost to that kid twice before but once you learn someone else’s style you can learn how to stop someone better. So he wrestled very intelligently and didn’t give up any points.

Wise also noted the intensity and interest generated in a match that went six minutes of regulation with nary a point.

“It wasn’t a boring match at all,” Wise said. “It was very exciting since there was a lot of activity and just not a lot of scoring. They both battled back and forth. It was a very good match.”

Gleed advanced to the final with a 9-4 quarterfinal win and a 9-0 semifinal win over Othello’s Anthony Barrera.

Barrera ended up in third place.

David Peralez made the seeding process appear trivial as the Chief, seeded fourth, stormed through his 125-pound bracket to take his crown.

“He was seeded fourth and beat the number one seed in the semifinals handily,” Wise said. “I told the tournament director he was seeded too low. He totally dismantled the U-High kid and tore him up.”

That “kid” — Brandon Byers — fell 15-4 in the 125-pound final, falling in line with Peralez’s first-round victim (first-round pin), quarterfinal opponent (5-2 win for Peralez), and the top-seed (14-4 win for the Chief in the semifinals).

At 215-pounds, junior Brian Chamberlain followed up his title at the Sierra Nevada Classic in the same weight class, bycollecting the championship in Spokane.

Chamberlain took the final in a 3-0 win over U-High’s Jake Laden.

He also had two pins in the previous rounds to set up the final match with Laden.

“Brian is wrestling very tough,” Wise said. “Even though it was a lower scoring match, he totally dominated. He was never in jeopardy and wrestled well all weekend. He’s so strong and gets in good position,”

Moses Lake’s Kabe Fluaitt took 2nd at 285-pounds with a second-round pin loss to Connor Thomas of Flathead.

“He beat the kid at Tri State, but that kid is a big kid and pretty good too,” Wise said. “Kabe took a bad shot and got under that guy which isn’t a good place to be against someone that big.”

Other placers for Moses Lake includes, Nico Moreno (third at 140-pounds), Logan Phelps (fourth at 171-pounds), and Hayden Wise (sixth at 112-pounds).

For Othello, the Huskies did not come back with any individual titles but still returned home with three runners-up trophies.

Matt Jordan (130-pounds) finished second to Flathead’s Joaquin Calderon, losing 8-2 in the final, while Amando DeLeon fell 6-0 to U-High’s Jacob Mason in the 160-pound final.

At 171-pounds Daniel Walker took second, falling 5-3 to Brian Nygard of Wenatchee.

“I was proud of Matt, Amando, and Daniel for making the finals,” Othello coach Ruben Martinez said. “All of them won close matches in the quarters and semis to get them in to the championship.  I think that every one of those wrestlers that we faced will be competing for state honors in 4A and in Montana, so placing second was not necessarily a bad thing.”

The three finalists represent the same number Othello placed in 2004 when it won the Class 2A state title.

Along with Barrera’s third-place result at 103-pounds, Eddie Garza (152-pounds) and Joey Gomez (215-pounds) each took fifth to aid in Othello’s seventh-place team finish and round up the list of Huskies’ placers.

“I felt that we wrestled well but there were a few athletes that did not wrestle up to their expectations and that worries me a little,” coach Martinez said. “But we should be fine now that we can focus on finishing our league duals and prepare for the district tournament.  I had seven freshmen compete in this tough tournament and they got some valuable experience that will help them this year and definitely help them when we return next year.”

For the current season, Othello’s hopes ride on getting its lineup to the standard they need to push for a place amongst the 2A elite.

“We need to have a full line-up there if we want to fare better,” Martinez said. “The compliments from U-High, Flathead, Moses Lake, and Wenatchee were positive regarding how our young team battled in all the close matches and we had a lot of them.

“The team is wrestling very well and we can start focusing on getting more aggressive and more physical. It doesn’t get any better than this.”