Hunter Cruz prevails in 2OT, wins first state title
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake 152-pounder Hunter Cruz celebrates after beating Battle Ground's Isaiah Duran 2-1 in double overtime to win the state championship.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz tries to turn Battle Ground’s Izaiah Duran onto his back.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz celebrates after his state semifinal victory.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake’s Nick Hara (left) takes a shot to the head.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz ties up with Union’s Tommy Strassenberg.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Officials try to stop Hunter Cruz from bleeding during the state semifinals.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Othello’s Reese Jones works to pin his opponent in the semifinals.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake 182-pounder competes in the state semifinals.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Battle Ground’s Izaiah Duran prepares for his championship match against Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz (left) hangs on to the leg of Battle Ground’s Izaiah Duran.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Battle Ground’s Izaiah Duran grapples with Moses Lake’s Hunter Cruz.
Connor Vanderweyst/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake 152-pounder Hunter Cruz ties up with Battle Ground’s Izaiah Duran.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Hunter Cruz poses with the Moses Lake coaching staff after winning the 152-pound state championship.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Hunter Cruz competes during Mat Classic XXIX.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Hunter Cruz lets out a yell after winning the state championship.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Moses Lake 182-pounder Daiman Vasquez works from the top position.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Moses Lake’s Payton Castro tries to escape during a match at Mat Classic XXIX.
Kennady Schlagel/courtesy photo Moses Lake heavyweight Daniel Zermeno grabs a hold of a leg during his match.
TACOMA — Bracket shakeups, near constant blood timeouts in the semifinals and a championship bout against his good friend.
Hunter Cruz overcame it all.
The 152-pound junior exorcised his only loss of the season in the semifinals and beat Izaiah Duran of Battle Ground, a personal friend, for the championship 2-1 in double overtime.
“It feels great,” Cruz said. “This is the best day of my life.”
Cruz dominated his way into the state semifinals with a pair of technical falls, setting up a rematch against the wrestler who handed him his lone defeat — Union's Tommy Strassenberg. Strassenberg beat Cruz in the Gut Check Invitational finals and was the top-ranked 152-pounder entering the state tournament.
If chalk prevailed, the two would meet again, but in which round became the biggest issue. The initial outlook had a prospective match in the semifinals until a late change moved Strassenberg to the other side of the bracket. It was not until arriving in Tacoma Thursday that the Moses Lake coaches were made aware of the reversion back to the original semifinal match-up.
“We got here about 3:30 on Thursday when everybody gets here and one of the coaches from Tahoma came up to me and says, 'Hey, that bracket's changing again,'” assistant coach Ariel Garza said. “I talked to Hunter and said, 'Hunter, they're changing it. You're going to have him again now in the semis and the first thing he says is, 'Good, I wanted him first.'
“So that kind of shows you that character of it doesn't matter. You tell that to another kid and he'd probably start dropping his head and getting all those little thoughts going through his mind, but what Hunter thought about was I'm going to beat him here or there — it don't matter to me in what order. I'm going to win this thing.”
Against Strassenberg, Cruz gained control of the match early with the first take-down and held a 3-1 lead in the third round. The result was sealed when Cruz was able to turn Strassenberg onto his back for four more crucial points to win 7-2.
“I just kept a close match, got the first take-down and he made a stupid mistake,” Cruz said.
In the championship, Cruz and Duran exchanged one-point escapes through three rounds. Neither wrestler was able to score a take-down in the first overtime.
In the second extra period, Cruz held Duran down for the 30-second duration. Instead of trying to match Cruz, Duran selected the neutral position and conceded one point — hoping for a take-down that hadn't occurred in the previous seven and a half minutes.
“I knew I was going to win,” Cruz said. “He hasn't taking me down all match. Why is he going to take me down with 30 seconds left?”
Cruz highlighted an otherwise uneven state tournament for Moses Lake. District and regional champion Chandler Fluaitt (285) was on the wrong end of stall calls and lost to Andrew Raymond of Cascade in the quarterfinals 11-9. Fluaitt lost his ensuing match by fall and was eliminated on Day 1.
Nick Hara (132) settled for fifth place in his final tournament after an overtime loss to Tahoma's Nick Whitehead in the quarterfinals. A late escape by Hara forced the extra period, but Whitehead earned the clinching take-down to win 9-7.
Daiman Vasquez (182) finished fifth after a run to the state semis, Payton Castro finished sixth and Daniel Zermeno (285) was fourth.
“A lot of things we've got to work on,” Garza said. “Jaime and I stayed up late last night trying to figure out what can we do differently to make sure that we don't take seventh, eighth, ninth again. To us, that's not good enough.”
Team standings
- 1. Tahoma 158
- 2. Curtis 145
- 7. Moses Lake 67
Moses Lake placers
- 132: Nick Hara, fifth
- 152: Hunter Cruz, first
- 182: Daiman Vasquez, fifth
- 220: Payton Castro, sixth
- 285: Daniel Zermeno, fourth