Knights capture 6 titles & district wrestling crown
Miguel Ayala, face down, scores three points with a near fall before continuing on to a pin Caleb Schroeder of Burbank in 1:32.
Hunter Follett of Royal struggles to free himself from Alex Baumgartner of Kiona-Benton and score two points by reversal on is way to an 8-3 semifinal victory.
ROYAL CITY - The Royal High wrestling team buried the opposition at the SCAC district tournament in Royal last Saturday and qualified 20 boys for this Saturday's regional tournament at Kiona-Benton.
The Royal boys claimed six individual titles and scored 339.5 points for first place. Ki-Be finished second with 179.5 points. Wahluke was sixth with 75.
Coach Randy Miller was happy with the results, but he cautioned against too much hope at regionals. There were big weaknesses in the district field. That will not be the same at regionals with the likes of Naches, Zillah and Granger added to the competition.
Royal will take several third and fourth place winners to regionals. They will be pitted against 1s and 2s from the SCAC West. There will be some attrition, but any surprises by these boys could boost the Knights to a team title.
The Knights will be led by regional and state favorite Darrin Miller at 172 pounds. He won the district title in a breeze, wrestling only twice.
Miller defeated J.T. Garland of Burbank, 17-6, in the semifinals, then took the title by injury default over Tanner Brown of River View.
The third place finishers included Steven Toro at 120, Abraham Medina at 126, Elias Cardenas at 132, Jose Galindo at 145, C.J. Quintero at 160 and Gerard Weyns at 182.
The fourth placers for Royal were Addin Felker at 132, Gerardo Santo at 152, Adrian Trinidad at 170 and Richard Segura at 195.
Eduardo Rodriguez claimed second place for Royal at 106, Cesar Flores captured second place for Royal at 145, Hunter Follett did the same at 195, and Angel Rojas followed suit at 285.
The other title winners were Eduardo Acevedo at 113, Kiki Chabolla at 120, Carlos Hernandez at 126, Jose Ponce at 138 and Miguel Ayala at 220.
Acevedo was first to win a title. He pinned Jorge Ortiz of Connell in 1:58 and pinned Gerardo Morales of Connell in 5:36.
Because of a short field at 120, Chabolla did not wrestle until the final. He took that by pinning Oscar Ortiz of Connell in 54 seconds.
Hernandez had a full slate of three matches and, combined, they took about as much time as one match decided by decision. He pinned Garrett Mitchell of Ki-Be in 1:14, Roman Rodriguez of Connell in 3:36 and Flavio Sandoval of Ki-be in 3:03.
Ponce got his first start in the semifinal round, and he had to battle. Fernando Ramos of Connell went down, 10-7, in the semis, and Conner Rexin of Burbank lost to Ponce by only 3-2.
Because of another short field, Ayala had only two matches. He pinned Caleb Schroeder of Burbank in 1:32 and stopped Seer Deines of Connell by technical fall, 15-0.
Rodriguez topped Miguel Andrade of Ki-Be, 8-2, before falling to Jaron Gunter of Ki-Be, 8-2, in his final.
Flores had only one match, and that was a loss to Luis Carrasco of Burbank in the final.
Follett made it to his final by defeating Alex Baumgartner of Ki-Be, 8-3, in a rugged semifinal battle.
There was only one match for Rojas. It was the final, which he dropped to Tanner Cook of Ki-Be.