Huskies win first dual, take second at Deer Park tourney

OTHELLO — Between a season-opening dual against Ellensburg on Thursday and traveling to their first tournament over the weekend, the Othello boys wrestling team stayed busy through the end of last week. 

The Huskies first defeated the Bulldogs 51-24 in the Thursday dual before taking second at the Deer Park Invitational on Saturday. 

“They were really excited,” head coach Rudy Ochoa II said. “It’s tough when you practice so many days consecutively and you have no competition to show for it. I think they were excited to get on the mat, especially in front of the home crowd.” 

Nine Huskies began the 2024-25 season with a win at the dual; senior Christopher Garcia (106 pounds), freshman Xavier Mendez (113), junior Daniel Gonzalez (120), junior Mason Russell (138), senior Jeremiah Flores (144), senior Camilo Mendez III (157), senior Parker Freeman (175), senior Anthony Solorio (215) and senior Mason Perez (285) all were victorious Thursday. 

“It was a fun dual, I felt the dual was exciting through and through,” Ochoa said. “Each match had some excitement; the exhibition matches were exciting. I think the kids focused on the basics and sticking to what they do as individual wrestlers.” 

Eight of the nine wins were via pins; five of those pins came in the first round. 

“Chasing pins is one thing that we really try to push, to get used to that when we’re in that scenario, to try and capitalize on it,” Ochoa said. “We actually talked about it right before the dual started, that we were going to try and chase pins any chance we could. The opportunity presented itself, and then the boys capitalized on it.” 

On Saturday, Othello traveled east for the Deer Park Invitational, where they finished second as a team with 170 points. Mead won the tournament with 235 points, while the Huskies finished ahead of Tonasket’s 168 points. 

“It was a pretty tough field – Mead's always tough, Tonasket’s tough, Lewiston looked really tough,” Ochoa said. “I think it took a team effort. We had people score from just about every way; we had some freshmen and some first-year varsity guys that stepped up and won some matches for us.” 

Nine Huskies placed at the tournament, including Russell (138 pounds) and Perez (285) who finished atop their weight classes; joining them on the podium were Xavier Mendez (106, fifth), Gonzalez (120, fifth), Flores (144, second), Camilo Mendez (157, second), sophomore Armoni Zuniga-Mendez (157, sixth), Freeman (175, fifth) and Solorio (215, sixth). 

“It’s always rewarding when they’re on the podium,” Ochoa said. “We do try to push not to get too caught up in wins and losses and not to get too caught up in being on the podium. Obviously, the goal is to try and win the match, but we try to focus on the small battles right in front of us and let the results take care of themselves. Even the ones that didn’t make the podium, they were right there on every single match.” 

Othello returns to the mat Wednesday in a road dual against Grandview at 7 p.m. Later this week, Huskie wrestlers will travel to Idaho for the Tri-State tournament at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Teams from Moses Lake and Quincy will also wrestle at the tournament.