Dream Duals reap wrestling rewards for Chiefs, Huskies, Cougars

SPOKANE — With four weeks left to fine tune every move, harness all individual prowess, and learn the weaknesses of multiple opponents, the Moses Lake, Othello, and Warden High School wrestling teams embarked on a dream Saturday.

Once they all came and left the 2010 Dream Duals held in Spokane each team and their individual wrestlers returned home with more hardware and more importantly, experience needed to contend at this year’s Mat Classic.

Moses Lake captured the 4A title, while the Warden boys finished second in the 2A bracket, and Othello wound up with a 1-2 record on the day.

Warden’s girls team won its bracket.

Moses Lake Chiefs win third straight tourney

Moses Lake not only claimed the title of this year’s Dream Duals with a 45-28 win over Rogers (Puyallup), but they also took the crown in a third consecutive tournament, following wins at the Pacific Northwest and Marysville tournaments.

“It was unexpected because we forfeited at 145-pounds and giving up six points against these kind of teams we were fortunate enough to win it,” Moses Lake coach Jamie Wise said. “But the kids stepped up and wrestled well to win it.”

Against Rogers in the final, Nico Moreno (third round, 140-pounds), Logan Phelps (second round, 171 pounds), James Fitting (second round, 189 pounds),  Brian Chamberlain (second round, 215-pounds), and Kabe Fluaitt (second round, 285-pounds) recorded pin victories for the Chiefs who were aided by two forfeit wins.

Moreno, Chamberlain, and Fluaitt all pinned out to go 3-0 during the tournament.

“It was what we had to have and I think they wrestled so solid and stayed in great position,” Wise said. “They did whatever it took to get the pin. They knew we needed them to get some pins for the team to have a chance.”

Jordan Bishop, Beau Gleed, and Phelps each went 3-0 winning via a mix of pin, decision, or forfeit.

Bishop took a 6-2 win to aid in the Chiefs win over Rogers.

The solid performance by almost half the Chiefs’ roster came at a time where they knew going in the lost points at 145-pounds would have to made up somewhere.

“Everyone knows going into this one its all about team and not about individuals,” Wise said. “We told them before the dual meet with Wenatchee you sometimes have to do the team thing you try to get the team points and get every point you can. They came through and saved us team points here and there.”

Moses Lake defeated Graham-Kapowsin 49-27 in pool play with Robert Leyva, Andrew Valdez, Bishop all getting involved in the pin parade.

“We got more pins than we’ve had lately and that was big,” Wise said. “Maybe it was because we haven’t seen these teams before and they took it pretty serious and got down to business when they had to.”

Gleed recorded a 13-2 major decision victory and Luicano Hernandez took a 12-10 win.

Moses Lake used five pins to spark their other pool win,  a 44-21 defeat of Central Valley.

Those wins combined with decision victories by Fitting, Gleed, Phelps, and Bishop were enough to pull away from Central Valley and go a long way toward setting up the final match against Rogers.

“It was a very intense and fun weekend, “Wise said.  “We made the best of it and had a great time. It’s totally different than the other two tournaments since its a dual meet tournament. What it does for post season is that it gives us confidence that we can do it and some of the kids get to see some others they will see at the state tournament. We’ve seen most of the best teams and we know what they are doing so it helps us prepare with the little adjustments.”

Warden Lady Cougars take “Dream” title

Warden’s girls team captured the dual title by beating up Othello 58-10.

“This was a great opportunity to wrestle in dual format for the girls,” Lady Cougars coach Valerie A. Hernandez said. “They don’t get that due to low number of girls participating on this side of the state.  Coming back form Fife High school last weekend with a first place trophy gave the girls an idea of where they stand in the girls division.”

Melissa Vasquez, Alexys Jolley, and Carter Marks won via pin for Warden, which received 30 points through five forfeit victories.

Leti Landeros captured a 14-2 decision to round out the scoring for Warden.

Cougar boys team finishes second to Orting

After a resounding win over Montesano and a narrow conquest of Cashmere in pool action, the Warden boys fell in the 1A final 38-30 to Orting.

Despite the narrow loss, the Cougars saw top performances by J.P. Martinez (112-pounds), Scott Henderson (140-pounds), Hector Camacho (145-pounds), Dakota Scott (171-pounds), and Gerino Luna (215-pounds) won by pin to secure all of Warden’s points in the final.

In their 60-19 win over Montesano, Warden scored six pins wins by Javier Tapia, Carlos Gomez, Daniel Pruneda, Sam Suarez, Martinez, and Henderson.

Warden wrapped up pool action with a grind-it-out 36-32 win over Cashmere.

J.P. Martinez and Carlos Gomez took 3-2 wins, while Adam Hansen, Scott, and Luna won by pin.

Huskies finish duals with strong 1-2 mark

Othello coach Ruben Martinez noted his squad’s matches against Deer Park and Riverside would be good tune ups for their Central Washington Athletic Conference tilt with Selah on Friday which will decide the league title.

Not only did they end up as predicted, his Huskies, came close in both battles, dropping a 31-27 decision against Deer Park while falling short, 36-31 against Riverside.

“We always attend the Dreams with the expectation of wrestling some tough matches and putting ourselves in close matches that will prepare us for the post season,” Ruben Martinez said.  “We took a young team in there know that we would face two time defending state champions Deer Park and highly rated Riverside.”

Against Deer Park, Othello saw Matt Jordan (130-pounds) and Joey Gomez (189-pounds) record pin victories.

Reuben Lopez (10-7 win, 145-pounds), Eddie Garza (3-1 win, 152-pounds), Amando Deleon (10-4 win, 160-pounds), and Daniel Walker (9-2 win, 171-pounds), also scored victories against Deer Park, to give Othello seven wins out of the 14 contested matches.

“We knew where their studs and state placers were at and we wanted to wrestle well against them,” coach Martinez said. “We got some bad news though that morning as our 112 pounder was disqualified for having a rash that the doctor considered contagious and we did not have the proper documentation.  Immediately that placed us in a bigger deficit as we were without a heavyweight and without a true 215 and a true 119 pound wrestler.  I was very proud of how our team handled themselves against Deer Park.”

In their battle against Riverside, Gilbert Villa, Lopez, and Walker took pin wins while Garza registered a major decision victory.

Deleon captured a 6-4 overtime win over Devon Davis and the Huskies received one forfeit win to complete their scoring total.

“We wrestled in some close matches which will help us down the road,” Ruben Martinez said. “Matt lost a close match in overtime to one of the best state wrestlers at 130 pounds.  I was proud of how Matt wrestled him.   Then Eduardo Montes was wrestling another two-time state veteran, Justin Hodge and lost a close 7-6 battle.”

Against an All-Star team assembled to replace a team that dropped out of the competition, Othello won 46-29, as Joseph Gonzales, Matthew Melo, Jordan, Lopez, Walker, and Gomez scored pin wins and Eduardo Montes recorded an 18-5 major decision victory.

Deleon scored a 22-10 major decision win for the Huskies to finish with a 2-1 record.

“We had four individuals go undefeated this weekend,” Ruben Martinez said. “We are wrestling very well right now and we have a big match with Selah this weekend.  We will use the positive things that we saw this weekend and work on correcting the little things that we did not succeed with in some matches. We still need to make some believers out of some of our younger wrestlers.  We will incorporate some post-season practices and strategies this week as winning the league title should be considered a post-season competition.”