PORTLAND, ORE. — Centralia battled in a field of 33 teams here on Saturday and came away with a fourth-place finish at the War of the Roses wrestling tournament.
Taryn Salazar reached the finals for the second week in a row but lost in the championship match to take second. Alex Hamilton, Ali Silva and Analeese McAllister each finished third. McAllister finished the day 4-1 and won all of her matches by fall.
Jakayla Shipe finished fifth for the Tigers.
“Almost every girl on the team finished the day with at least one win, which is exciting to see and bodes well for the future of our program,” Centralia girls wrestling coach Mark Holmberg said.
The Centralia girls are back on the mats on Saturday at the Tiger Classic in Napavine.
Centralia’s Alex Hicks-Avron Wins at Atown Throwdown
ARLINGTON — Centralia’s Alex Hicks-Avron was the champion at 126 pounds to lead nine wrestlers for the Tigers at the Atown Throwdown wrestling tournament here on Saturday.
Hicks-Avron turned in a dominating performance, pinning all of his opponents on the way to the title.
“He (Hicks-Avron) is a really impressive kid with a 4.0 in all advanced placement classes, and first chair in band. He works really hard and is getting better every day,” Centralia coach Scott Phillips said. “Trevor Richey and Austin Lucht did really great today while advancing to their first ever finals. Our team really lacks numbers this year due to a lack of student body participation in athletics, but we are focusing on who we have and are really focusing on getting better with the athletes we have. We are looking forward to improving every week.”
The Tigers had seven of nine wrestlers place in the tournament. Trevor Richey (160) finished second and Austin Lucht (220) each earned a second place finish.
Eddie Matias (138) and Caleb Hylton (170) each finished third and Justin Lake (145) and Sawyer Vogel (195) placed fifth for the Tigers.
Centralia hosts Montesano on Wednesday in a non-league dual meet.
Adna Turns Out Two Champions at Wildcat Invite
LA CENTER — The Pirates placed three wrestlers, including two champions, at the 26th annual Wildcat Invitational here on Saturday.
Adna’s Matthew Slape captured a title at 170 pounds and Ashton Dowell took the high step on the podium at 182 pounds. Lucas Ashley was the only other Pirate to place and fell in the 170 pound title tilt with Slape.
“Our numbers are way down this year but we still managed to get three in finals. This is our first time at this tournament and its nice to compete against some schools we haven't seen before,” said Adna coach Craig Ferrier.
Ferrier noted that there are only seven boys wrestling in the program this year and they’ve gotten somewhat of a delayed start on the season.
“It was the first competition for our football players, and due to their late weight assessments they all had to wrestle up a weight class, and it showed,” said Ferrier.
Ferrier added that Tristan Ridley wrestled well and just missed the medal round at 138 pounds. He also said that seniors Ashton Dowell and Matthew Slape showed positive signs after missing two weeks of practice due to an extended football season.
Adna will wrestle at Tumwater on Saturday.
Rochester Takes Eighth at Border Battle
BLAINE — Despite running a split squad all the way up north Rochester was able to claim eighth place as a team at the Battle of the Border here last week.
Rochester notched 25 wins at the tournament, including 11 pins and one technical fall.
“I thought we did great. We brought 12 guys up there and of that we had one first, one second, two thirds, a fifth and a sixth,” said Rochester coach Jason Dick.
Dick noted that the other half of his team was wrestling in a mixer at Fort Vancouver.
“I thought it was pretty good for some of our other guys to lead a team down south. It was a mixture of varsity going both ways so they got to commingle,” Dick explained. “Instead of just the state guys leading, the underclassmen also got to step up and lead.”
The Warriors were able to place eighth out of 20 teams thanks in part to the first place finish of Riley Cohron at 138 pounds and Nate Kilmer’s third place finish at 195 pounds.
“Riley exceeded expectations and Nate Kilmer was a big surprise too,” Dick said. “They both had great tournaments, but Kilmer, this is his first tournament wrestling at weight and he lost to the guy who won it and walked out of there with a third place.”
Four other Warriors helped add to that point tally. Jayden Lancaster placed second at 145 pounds and Dailin Schlect placed third at 126 pounds. Eulises Tinoco and James Jimenez rounded out the 160 pound bracket by placing fifth and sixth, respectively.
Rochester will host Elma on Wednesday in a non-league dual meet.
