Hesperia had five wrestlers reach the district finals Saturday at
the Division 4 individual meet in Holton, earning them all spots at next
week's regional meet.
Panther stars Noah Walker and Carter
Fuentes, who were each the top seeds, lived up to the billing at 285 and
106 pounds respectively with district championships.
Walker
ran his season record to 42-3 with an impressive effort. He pinned
teammate Mackie MacKinnon to open his tournament run, then blanked
Montie Perez of Ithaca 4-0 before pinning Jameson Beebe of Pine River in
the finals.
Fuentes dominated his bracket, pinning each of
his first two opponents before facing off with teammate Grayson Gould in
the finals. Fuentes won that match by technical fall.
Gould
pulled off an overtime upset of No. 2 seed Payton Crawfis of Carson
City-Crystal in his first match at 106, then scored a pin to reach the
finals against Fuentes.
Also for Hesperia, Aiden Smith and
Ryan Fuentes were second at 144 and 150 respectively. Smith, who was the
top seed in his bracket, picked up wins by technical fall (against
teammate Wyatt Muckey) and by pin to reach the finals before settling
for second place. Ryan Fuentes pulled an impressive upset in his
semifinal match, knocking off top seed Omari Lane of Lakeview before
taking second place. Ryan Fuentes also had a first-round pin in the
bracket.
MacKinnon went 2-2 on the day, scoring two pins
before falling in the 'blood round' - winner advances, loser is done for
the year - to end his season.
Dain Kraus (138), Muckey (144) and Ussiah Russell (175) each won one match in the district tournament.
