Wrestling team defeats Vallivue

The Mountain Home Tigers wrestling team opened its SIC conference dual season with a 48-16 win over Vallivue last Wednesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

The Tigers won 10 of 14 matches, four by pins in rolling to the win.

T.J. Billinger won by forfeit at 103 pounds, and picking up pins were Daniel Doronio (125), Calvin Vivier (135), Kamron Spaulding (140), and Tyson Sessions (189). Kaeo Doronio (112),

Tanner Carpenter (145) and Kori Andrews (160) won major decisions, and Nico Pinque (130) and Charles Davidson (215) won by decision. Travis Goldsby (119), Zacq Hale (152) and Chris Knudson (171) lost by decision, and Lucas Greer (275) lost by pin.

Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson was pleased with the efforts of his wrestlers.

"I really liked the way things were going out on the JV mat and we just kind of kept it up during the varsity match, so it was a good win for us. We needed that."

Knudson also was pleased that in the four losses, just one was by pin, and that was to last year's state champion at 275 pounds, Jake Rodrigues.

"We've really stressed the last couple weeks about not giving up the pins, and that's how you build a team and that's how you learn you're getting better, and I think the guys have really bought into that and we've just got to keep buying into that and start executing the things we need to do to become a great team."

TIGERS FINISH 3RD AT MOUNTAIN VIEW TOURNEY

Mountain Home brought home three champions from the Mountain View Junior Varsity Wrestling Tournament last Friday and Saturday.

Winning the 152-lb. weight class was Zacq Hale. Colby Lord won the 160-lb. championship, and Matt Ward took first at 171 pounds.

Ty Kleffner made the championship match, but finished second at 140 pounds.

Tyler Charters finished fourth for the Tigers at 275 pounds, and fifth-place efforts went to Kamron Spaulding (135), Keith Bonney (171) and Blake Pharis (215).

The Tigers finished third out of 24 teams. Eagle won the tourney with 90 points, Kuna was second with 79, and Mountain Home a close third with 77 points.

"I was expecting a couple other kids placing a little bit higher, and I thought we could have done better as a team," said Coach Knudson, "but as it turned out, there were a lot of tough maybe JV wrestlers there, but a lot of them wrestle varsity for some of those other teams, so I was happy with the way things went.

"It was a lot of mat time -- we had 21 wrestlers over there, so I'm really happy about the mat time that we were getting, and we had quite a few kids that were one win away from placing, so it was a great effort by the kids."

Both the Tiger varsity and JV squad goes to Madison High School in Rexburg this weekend for the Madison Tournament.

"I think there will be 16 or 17 teams there, including Sandpoint and Blackfoot, and a few teams we need to see, so it will be a good tournament for us to go to," said Coach Knudson.