Three Mountaineer boys earn first place at Stonetown Throwdown

Rainier as a team takes fourth out of 14 schools

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The Rainier High School boys wrestling team didn’t even plan to compete in the Stonetown Throwdown tournament at Tenino High School Saturday, Dec. 21.

Earlier that week, the Mountaineers were scheduled to help with the girls’ Lady Mountaineer Invitational, but after the tournament was cancelled due to an official shortage, boys head coach Chris Holterman had to scramble to find some competition before his team went on winter break.

He told the team of the major competition updates during the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 17, and while Rainier was short on wrestlers due to vacation and illness, the Mountaineers took fourth during the tournament and were led by three first-place winners. Zander Peck came out on top in the 165-pound bracket, Jayden Alegarbes prevailed in the 132-pound division, and Blake Roberts triumphed at 215.

Jacob Scott (120) and Dorien Cano (175) also advanced to the finals of their respective brackets and took home second-place medals. 

“Considering we were not even scheduled to compete today, it went pretty well. Those who were able to make it, put on a good show,” Holterman said. “We worked on some things this week that we'd struggled with and it was very nice to see kids implement what we'd worked on.”

Alegarbes was one of the stars of the day, winning in dominant fashion in the quarterfinals and squeezing by in the semifinals before defeating Winlock’s Xavier Sancho-Carrill in the finals. Holterman said Alegarbes has improved in his mental maturity and can hang with any wrestler when he is focused.

“I’ve just been eating the right things, focusing on my next match and not letting anything negative affect how I wrestle,” Alegarbes said. “I’ve wrestled [Sancho-Carrill] before, so knowing how he would wrestle, I went in with a simple game plan of working smart and not overthinking.”



The Stonetown Throwdown served as a change of pace for Peck, who finally was able to compete in his real weight class. Holterman said the senior has had to compete at a higher weight class the past two weeks, which was a valuable learning lesson for Peck.

“It was hard. I lost a couple of matches, and I think it was really refreshing to lose because I remember thinking that I needed to meet some expectation but I’ve been meeting an expectation for myself,” Peck said. “It feels like stuff is starting to improve, and I’m really happy with my run so far.”

After earning a first-round bye, Peck swept through the competition en route to the title, defeating Sumner’s Rjaee Mabine 13-0 in the quarterfinals, knocking off Orting’s Eamonn Jones in the semis and thrashing Elma’s Lucky Douvier in the final round.

“He seemed very comfortable out there with more evenly weighted opponents. He made some great adjustments in his matches and just wrestled good, smart matches,” Holterman said of Peck.

Roberts wrestled his best tournament since February, Holterman said. He made quick work of Elma’s Luke Sheffield with a first-period takedown in the quarterfinals and survived a test from Sumner’s Lincoln Campbell in the semifinals. Roberts only needed one minute and 43 seconds to defeat Orting’s Wyatt Lewis for the 215 crown.

“He has been working hard at practice on some new techniques, and it is paying off in his matches. I joked that his final match looked like Spider-Man vs. Hulk,” Holterman said of Roberts. “The Orting wrestler was super fast and moved well, while Blake was the power and more massive. Once Blake had a hold of him on the mat, it didn’t take long to get the finish.”

As a team, Rainier finished fourth with 154 points behind Yelm’s junior varsity team, Sumner and Orting’s JV team. Tenino took 12th out of 14 teams with 71 points, led by Koy Knox’s first-place medal in the 175 bracket and Rowdie Tafoya (285) taking third in his bracket. Winlock took 13th, with Sancho-Carrill’s second-place finish at 132 leading the way.