Oak Harbor is Viking Wrestling’s last victim before postseason tourneys
Published on Wed, Feb 4, 2009Read More Local News
Oak Harbor is Viking
Wrestling’s last victim
before postseason tourneys
It was another route of a Western Conference North opponent for Lake Stevens, who has won every dual meet against their WesCo opponents and anyone else the state of Washington has thrown at them this year, and have usually won by wide margins.
The Vikings have district and regional tournaments this week in Marysville and next week in Snohomish before they go for their third straight state championship in the Tacoma Dome. Lake Stevens has won a state wrestling championship five of the last nine years.
Thursday night in Oak Harbor, it was a 57-10 win with the Vikings winning all but two matches against the Wildcats. Of the Vikings’ dozen wins, six of them were pins and another was scored a technical fall. Senior B.J. Alewine started things off by toughing out a 7-5 decision over Oak Harbor senior John Tuttle at 140 lbs. Sean Pennington got Lake Stevens’ first pin in the next bout at 145 lbs. when he took down Ben Page in 1:14.
Junior Jacob Anderson had his hands full with Oak Harbor senior Jarred Tyson at 152 lbs. Anderson had a takedown and a reversal to take a 4-0 lead in the second period before Tyson made his own reversal and got a sudden near fall to tie the score a 4-4 going into the third and final period.
Tyson elected to start the third period in the down position, but Anderson elected to let him go free to start, giving Tyson a technical escape point a 5-4 lead. Already warned once before for stalling, Tyson was called for it again and Anderson was awarded a point to tie the match again. Shortly after, Anderson re-took the lead with a takedown. After letting Tyson out again, Anderson took him down one more time and got a near fall to secure a 11-6 decision that gave the Vikings a 12-0 lead early on.
The next match, 160 lbs., saw former state champion George King ruin Kyle Magana’s senior night by pinning him in just 51 seconds. A couple of matches later, at 189 lbs. Lake Stevens junior Justin Grow made even quicker work of Jake Lundstrom, pinning him in just 43 seconds.
At 171 lbs. Blake LeHuquet, the Lake Stevens senior who was extremely disappointed he wasn’t allowed to wrestle on his senior night a week earlier because of apparent paperwork errors by his doctors, got to take things out on Oak Harbor junior Zach Loescher. LeHuquet had two takedowns and four near falls for a dominating 16-0 technical fall.
Down 29-0, Oak Harbor finally got a win courtesy of one of their seniors, Brian Howard. Howard pinned his Lake Stevens opponent in 2:37 to give his Wildcats team six points. It was Oak Harbor’s only pin of the evening. Their only other win came by sophomore Cory Trimbur, who scored a 9-1 major decision at 103 lbs.
After Howard gave Oak Harbor fans something to cheer about, Zach Teuber quieted them just as quickly. In the evening’s heavyweight match, the Lake Stevens senior was well on his way to a technical fall as he had a 14-2 lead in the second period. Instead of the five points a technical fall was worth, Teuber gave his team six points when he pinned Phil Rodgers in 2:34.
A pair of freshmen did battle at 112 lbs. and it turned out to be the shortest match of the night. Lake Stevens’ Nick Majors impressed his older teammates by pinning Oak Harbor’s Ben Pralle in only 35 seconds to put the Vikings up 41-10. Junior Josh Heinzer easily won at 119 lbs. also for Lake Stevens, when he earned the Vikings’ last pin of the evening when he had Oak Harbor senior Royce Cardwell on his back in 42 seconds.
Senior Jack Stilwell worked his way to a 9-2 decision over Connar Zimmerman at 125 lbs. for the Vikings. That was followed by Lake Stevens senior Sean Anderson taking down Josh Barton seemingly at will, doing it seven times en route to a 19-5 major decision at 130 lbs. Senior Kyle Johnson ended the night by winning the 135-lbs. bout with a 13-8 decision over Oak Harbor’s Cody Elliot.
The Vikings next have this weekend’s district tournament at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. The tournament will be held Friday night and all day Saturday with finals being held later in the afternoon. Those who qualify will move on to the regional tournament at Snohomish High School the following week.
