Hawks compete at ACS invite

ANCHORAGE - Houston's defending state heavyweight champion Jacob Chapel battled to a third-place finish at Anchorage Christian School's annual ACS wrestling tournament Saturday.

Chapel is among the heavyweight favorites to find his way back into the heavyweight finals again this year, but since this is only his second major meet of the year, he still has some ground to make up with those wrestlers who are challenging him for his title.

A second state championship title is always the hardest to achieve, coach Doug Janneck said.

"He has the ability to be in the finals, but if you come back as a state champion, everybody is gunning for you," he said.

Houston's team, which is made up of predominantly freshmen and sophomores, finished 15th out of more than 40 schools that attended the competition.

The Skyview Panthers won the tourney with 236.5 points.

Chapel advanced to the third-place match despite losing a close contest to Barrow's Seko Unutoa.

Chapel and Unutoa wrestled neck and neck until the defending state champion got caught on his back, costing him a three-point near fall to Unutoa who eventually won the match 13-8, Janneck said.

"He took some chances he shouldn't have taken. It was a one-point match until then," he said.

Houston junior 189-pound wrestler Russell Shurtleff has set his sights on Cordova's John Wiese, who was last year's 189-pound state runner-up.

Shurtleff, who has the ability to compete with the state's top-seeded wrestlers, has to iron out some defensive manuevers this week at practice, Janneck said.

"We haven't got to see [Wiese] at all this year," he said. "Leg riding is what got him. He needs to work on that. It got him in the fifth- and sixth-place match too.

"I was a leg rider when I was in high school, so he'll be learning a couple of things to do to defend against that," he said.

While Janneck admits that losing seven varsity wrestlers to graduation last year put a damper on Houston's chances of duplicating last year's fourth-place finish at the state finals, he said the Hawks will continue to rebuild for the future.

"The other kids did well for the level they're at, and with some more experience benefiting our team, Houston's team will hold their own in the future," he said.

Photo: Russell Shurtleff gets ready to pin his opponent at the ACS invitationals.

Photo by GENE JANSEN/Frontiersman.