Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Warrior Morgan Tigner works on securing a pin during the dual against Douglas at the start of the gold bracket Saturday morning at Worland High School. Douglas beat Worland 49-28.
WORLAND - On the final day of the Battle in the Big Horns wrestling dual tournament the Worland Warriors opened up Saturday morning against rival Douglas, and the dual went poorly for Worland as the team lost 49-28 to the Bearcats.
In the consolation side, Worland could have packed it in for Christmas break, instead the team rallied to beat Thermopolis 58-18 setting up a fifth-place showdown with the 4A Kelly Walsh Trojans.
Having previously been defeated by the Trojans on Friday by 11 points the Warriors entered the dual with a collective focus of not repeating Friday's outcome.
At 145 pounds Milo Vega got the Warriors on the board 3-0 with a 9-5 decision over Brant Reiker. Next up was 152-pounder Eric Romo who was pinned by Javen Palmer giving the Trojans a 6-3 lead.
Kelly Walsh's lead was short-lived as Travis Tatkenhorst, 160 pounds, won his match 18-3 for the technical fall over Pollo Hermosillo, which earned the team five points. Isaac Goncalves, 170 pounds, picked up a pin over Jagger Hillhouse 19 seconds into his match for 6 points, giving Worland a 14-6 lead.
At 182 pounds, Quentin McBee was pinned by Dylan Jaure allowing for Kelly Walsh to cut the Worland lead 14-12. But 195-pounder Alex Beck was able to regain the six points with a pin of his own, pushing the Warrior lead to 20-12.
In the next two matches Worland and Kelly Walsh traded pins as Duane Nussbaum pinned Worland's Gabe Cardenas and Worland's Morgan Tigner pinned Dakota Ritter.
With the scoreboard favoring Worland 26-18, Kelly Walsh picked up a technical fall with Jace Palmer's 21-5 win over Worland's Dominic Hartley to go with Lane Jackson's pin of Warrior Paysen Curtis. The 11 points gave the Trojans a 29-26 lead.
Freshman Daniel Weyrich got the Warriors back on track with his pin of Jacob Enyert. The Trojans forfeited their 126-pound match against Worland's Buck Butterfield, giving Worland a 38-29 lead.
With two matches left the Warriors had Hayden Johnston, 132 pounds, and Hunter Elliott, 138 pounds, to preserve their lead. After a hard fought match Johnston was pinned by KW's Kole Kraus. Worland was still leading 38-35 but could not afford a pin or technical fall in the final match.
Elliott, a junior, fought with everything he had and even when the Trojan's Josh Kraus had him near a pin, he would slip out and go right back at the Trojan. At the start of the third round Elliott was feeding off an energetic home crowd while Kraus was clearly gassed and clearly frustrated. In the third round Elliott played the aggressor going after Kraus as he tried to make a comeback and either win by decision or pin.
Unfortunately for Elliott he wasn't able to catch up and lost 15-10 but with KW only gaining three points the dual was now tied 38-38. To determine a winner the tiebreaker would come down to which team head the most pins in the dual. The finally pin tally was 5-4, in favor of the Trojans and giving them one point for the 39-38 victory.
Worland's sixth-place finish is not a cause for celebration but the team's ability to persevere and put themselves in position for success is something that will help as the season moves on.
After the tournament the "best of the best" matches were held in which the two best wrestlers from each weight class went head to head for weight class bragging rights. Butterfield, Tatkenhorst, Beck and Tigner made it into the "best of the best" for Worland. Butterfield lost in an 8-2 decision, as did Tigner in an 8-1 decision. Beck won his match with a pin and Tatkenhorst won by pin and was named the tournament's outstanding upperclassman wrestler.
