The girls and boys Elmira/Crow high school wrestlers competed in the Sky-Em Dual Meet Championships on Jan. 7 in Siuslaw. The girls claimed the championships title, winning 4-0 in the duals, beating Junction City and Cottage Grove 30-0, Siuslaw 30-24 and Marshfield 18-12.
The boys finished last in the duals, but they put up a fight and did well when wrestling head-to-head. Overall, the results were losses to Junction City 30-33, Cottage Grove 33-48, Siuslaw 24-36 and Marshfield 24-30.
Senior Liberty Barklow and sophomore June Highburger went undefeated in their classes. Katarina Jentzsch won four of her five matches, and sophomore Summer McKeen and Lydia Drago each won three of four matches. Overall, they won 18 out of their 21 matches.
“I am so proud of our girls today. They won every dual and won the majority of the matches today. They all wrestled so hard, and I am seeing great improvement in the girls. Keep it upm girls!” Elmira/Crow head wrestling coach Justin Peeler said.
The boys wrestled well, too, and it showed in their individual scores. On varsity, senior Ian Drago and juniors Seth Drago and Enrico Cervantez were undefeated. Senior Ruben Fox won three out of four of his matches. Juniors Noah Sawyer and Luke Wolgamott and sophomore Brett Highburger won two of their four matches.
“Overall, our boys and girls looked great today. Probably the toughest team there,” Peeler said. “I am very proud to be their head coach and couldn’t do this without great assistants, too.”
The Crow/Elmira wrestlers also competed in Pleasant Hill on Saturday in the King of the Hill Tournament. The girls came in first and won their second tournament. The boys finished in eighth place, although the scoring got a little messed up because they forgot to include one of the boys’ scores. If they had, the boys would have finished in fifth place instead.
“We had another good day! We started off a little slow and sluggish, but finished very strong,” Peeler said. “The girls won another tournament and continue to do so well. The boys also did well since we had a smaller team. They started off a little tired and slow. I loved how they refocused themselves to finish so well.”
For the girls, Barklow finished first and McKeen, Highburger and Jentzsch all placed second. For the boys, Wolgamott finished first. Ian Drago wrestled tough but ended up coming in second place after a hard match in the finals. Seth Drago, Highburger and Cervantez tied for third. Cervantez lost by only one point.
“Overall, I am happy with how we worked through our slow start and finished strong,” Peeler said.
Support the Falcon wrestlers in their next meet on Saturday in the Nick Lutz Memorial Invitational at Siuslaw High School. The meet is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m.
