Bulldog grapplers face the best at Powell Invite

The Lovell Bulldogs wrestling squad kicked off a new season at the Powell Invitational Friday and Saturday. The team had third-place, fourth-place, fifth-place, sixth-place and eighth-place individual finishes in the tough field.

Natrona County won the meet with 270 points, followed by Powell with 227.5, Sheridan with 184, Riverton with 148 and Laurel, Mont. 147. The Bulldogs placed 18th as a team with 35 points, seven points ahead of Rocky Mountain and 21 points behind Shoshoni.

“Powell is always a good tournament to start the year with,” coach Nick DeWitt said. “Every wrestler gets a lot of matches, many of which are against upper-class divisions. The tournament provides the wrestlers and us, as coaches, an idea of where they are both with the technique and conditioning.”

Sophomore Carlos Garcia placed third in the 170-pound junior varsity division. Garcia went 4-0 on Friday by defeating Asher Barabas of Thunder Basin 9-2, pinning Nakoke Washakie of Wyoming Indian in 44 seconds, defeating Gabel Davis of Red Lodge, Mont. 11-2 and pinning Dustin Supino of Wind River in 1:17.

Saturday, Garcia pinned Supino again in 3:02 in the quarterfinals before falling to Blake Rumery-Rico of Riverton in the semifinals in 44 seconds. In the third-place match, Garcia stuck Bryce Stewart of Cody in 4:11.

Junior Cruz Garcia placed fourth at 285 pounds. Garcia went 2-2 on Friday, pinning Kaiden Newman of Lander in the second round in 39 seconds and Colter Thormahlen of Rocky in the fourth round in 3:26 for his two wins.

Saturday, Garcia pinned Kris Topaum of Riverton in the quarterfinals in 2:23 before falling to Hunter Pope of Buffalo in the semifinals in 18 seconds. In the third-place match, Garcia fell to Remington Ferree of Thermopolis in 45 seconds.

Freshman William Spann placed fifth at 106 pounds, and junior Kyler Marchant placed sixth at 120 pounds.

Junior Cardon Mickelson went 2-1 Friday at 120 pounds, pinning Emma Karhu of Powell in the first round in 1:19 and Kagen Baker of Wright in the second round in 46 seconds. Mickelson did not wrestle Saturday.

Winning a match on Friday were juniors Myzek McArthur and Marshall Mickelson and freshmen junior varsity division wrestlers Jadyn Snyder, Ryan Nunn and Tayton Hodges (eighth).

“The weekend showed us just how young we are as a team,” DeWitt said. “There were a lot of good things that came out of the weekend. The biggest was the vast improvement from Friday to Saturday. All of the wrestlers showed growth in just one day.”

The Bulldogs will compete at the Battle in the Big Horns Tournament this weekend in Worland. The duals tournament begins Friday at 1 p.m. and continues Saturday at 8 a.m. Teams also participating at the duals will be Buffalo, Cody, Douglas, Douglas, S.D., Glenrock, Greybull/Riverside, Lander, Newcastle/Upton, Pinedale, Powell, Riverton, Rock Springs, Shoshoni, Thermopolis, Torrington, Wheatland and host team Worland.

“This week, our main focus is to get everyone healthy and back on the mat,” DeWitt said. “After last weekend, we still have a lot of the basics to go over and drill. The Worland tournament will be interesting and a new experience for this group, with a large part of the team being freshmen that have never been in a dual before.”

By Sam Smith