Six Inglemoor High wrestlers placed in the top five at the tough 4A Region II Tournament last Saturday at Skyline High, earning automatic state berths, while four more wrestlers placed sixth to earn alternate spots.
As a team, Inglemoor placed fourth out of the 17 teams in attendance with 93 team points, with South Puget Sound League powerhouse Graham Kapowsin taking the team title with 194 points.
High finisher for the Vikings was Ben Carson, wrestling at 215, who finished second after powering his way through the bracket with two pins. In the finals, he fell to Graham Kapowsin’s Mikey Ramos in 2 minutes, 13 seconds.
A trio of Vikings placed third in their divisions: Ben Grabowski at 171 (defeated Emerald Ridge senior Nico Lopez, 5-1), Anthony Bratcher at 135 (pinned Emerald Ridge senior John Morrison in 1:36) and Josh Koukal at 189 (defeated Bethel junior Joel Ragazzo, 17-11).
“I was still really disappointed about it,” said Bratcher of his 14-3 loss to Aron Set-Heit of Todd Beamer, only his second loss of the year, as he fought back in the consolation bracket. “But I kind of knew the kids that I was going to wrestle, so I had it set in mind what I was going to do, and what I had done before to beat them.”
Junior Ian Bedo placed fourth, squeaking out a narrow 4-3 decision in the consolation semifinals before falling to Jack Richards, 6-0, in the finals, and on the girls’ side, Olivia Burton pinned Sedro-Woolley freshman Taylor Dawson in the third round en route to a fourth-place finish and a state berth at the girls’ Region 1 Tournament at Sedro-Woolley High.
Placing sixth and earning alternate spots for the Vikings were Shane Merrill (112), Brian Trabun (145), Sam Gastineau (160) and Andrew Stocker (285).
Viking co-head coach Paul Schulfer was happy with his team’s performance, even citing some room for improvement as his team prepares to wrestle on the sport’s biggest stage at the high-school level.
“I think we could have been a little better, but most of the breaks went our way,” he said. “It was cool to get some of the sophomores in (Koukal and Stocker). It’ll be good for them to see what the state experience is like.”
For Bothell, sophomore Brandon Davidson at 145 earned the Cougars’ only state berth by placing third, routing Spanaway’s David Fletcher by technical fall, 16-0, in the finals.
Junior David Schormann earned an alternate spot for a sixth-place finish at 119, and senior Chris Ungerecht, a three-time Kingco champion, did not compete due to an illness.
Although Kingco is considered a weak league for wrestling compared to the rest of the state, the Vikings are set to prove that theory wrong and come home with some Mat Classic hardware.
“I’m looking to get into the top eight, I won’t settle for anything less,” said Bratcher, who went two-and-out last year. “I don’t want to get ousted the first day again.”
Schulfer said that his team goal is to get the Vikings on the top-10 board in team points, a tall task considering that last year, the highest-placing team from the 4A Kingco conference was Skyline in 25th place.
“State’s always different because we never really know much about the teams we go up against,” Schulfer explained. “When we start to see the schools from the different corners of the state that we’re not used to seeing, it gets a little hard trying to prepare for them. I’m just hoping we wrestle well. Everyone’s hoping to place, and the seniors even more so because it’s their last shot.”
The Mat Classic gets under way at 10 a.m. Friday at the Tacoma Dome.
