Palmer hangs on for first Lancer Smith tourney win

PALMER — Somewhere, Lancer Smith must be proud.

A decade after Palmer High School initiated his tribute event, the Moose held on to win this weekend’s Lancer Smith Memorial Wrestling Tournament. It’s the first team win for Palmer in 10 years of hosting the tourney, which has grown to include nearly 40 teams and more than 500 prep wrestlers.

Winning the Lancer Smith is always a goal, Palmer head coach Dale Ewart said. Finally achieving that goal is a great litmus test to how the Moose wrestling program has grown and is a source of school pride, he said.

“It’s huge for our program,” Ewart said. “It’s great that everybody else is here and we’re real excited about this group of kids we have. We’ve had them since middle school and we know they can do some great things. Hopefully, we can use this to help put us back on the map.”

Palmer held a slim 8.5-point lead going into the finals over Colony, 159.5 to 151. After the finals, those points were enough for the Moose. South leapfrogged the Knights for second place with 156.5 points, followed by Colony, Wasilla (141.5) and East Anchorage (139) to round out the top-5.

Smith, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, is an Alaska wrestling icon. A former Big Sky Conference champion for Idaho State University, Smith moved to the Last Frontier and left his mark on Alaska wrestling, including 18 years as the Palmer High coach.

There’s still one milestone left for Palmer to summit regarding the Lancer Smith tourney, and that’s to crown an individual champion, Ewart said. Caleb Nielsen, a 182-pound junior, had a chance in Saturday’s finals, but dropped a 7-0 decision to Shyler Johnson of Unalakleet.

That loss doesn’t take away from a strong tournament for Nielsen, who placed sixth at state last year, Ewart said.

“I thought he wrestled real well,” he said. “He was our highest seed coming into the tournament and he had some spots to tune up, but he worked hard for everything he got and worked in every match. He’s getting better and better every week.”

While Palmer was busy piling up points to win the team title, another Valley wrestler was dominating his way to a win in one of the tournament’s best matches.

Luke Wagner, Houston High’s defending 220-pound champion, pinned his way into the finals to face Derek Zorea of Service, the small-schools runner-up last year. The two are familiar opponents on the mat, Wagner said after winning an exciting 14-12 decision.

“Me and that kid have been wrestling since seventh grade, on and off,” he said. “This is his senior year, so that’s the last time I get to wrestle him. That was a big match for me.”

The match lived up to its billing, with Zorea taking an early 5-4 lead after the first two-minutes of wrestling. The second period was more of the same, with the grapplers trading escapes, takedowns and reversals. By the end of the second, Wagner had taken the lead, 8-7.

With Zorea up 10-8, Wagner pulled off the move of the night, scoring a takedown and three back points to lead 14-10. After nearly getting pinned, Zorea managed a reversal to tighten up the final to 14-12.

“This was my best match this year,” Wagner said, adding he relishes being a defending champion and having other wrestlers gunning for him. “Oh yeah, I love that. I like wrestling hard people, and when they think I’ll give them a hard match, they wrestle better.”

Another motivator for the Hawk is an early season loss — his first in two seasons.

“I lost once this year, but it ain’t happening again,” he said. “That’s motivation for me. That loss made me step it up to a whole other level.”

Along with Palmer, Valley teams dominated the team standings, with Colony third and Wasilla fourth, despite not placing any wrestlers into the finals.

The Warriors are still finding their way into the season, head coach Shawn Hayes said.

“We wrestled OK,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do and we’re missing some guys out of the lineup. We have a good crew and we have some young kids who wrestled well. We had two matches we were winning and had to injury default, so that’s not fun.”

The Warriors had a trio of third-place finishes in Nate McKimson (145), Billy Schultz (195) and 220-pounder Quace Wright.

Colony’s Simon Root placed third, winning by injury default over Luke Heun of Palmer. The Knights also had strong performances from finalists Spencer Adams (second at 138), Sawyer Root (second at 170) and Mitchell Daigle (second at 285).

“We had a third, two fifths and three in the finals; not bad,” said Colony head coach Todd Hopkins, noting before the finals that the team standings were “a really close race.”

For the Knights, Hopkins said he was pleased with the efforts he saw as the tournament progressed.

“With Spencer Adams, he has a never-say-die attitude,” he said. “He was down in his (semifinal) match and got a near-fall to win it right in the last five, six seconds. The same thing with Sawyer Root. He won his (semifinal) in multiple overtimes.”

Then there was Daigle, who got caught and put on his back, but “he fought and he fought and ended up pinning his guy,” Hopkins said.

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

Lancer Smith Memorial

Friday and Saturday, Palmer High School

Team scores

1. Palmer 159.5, 2. South 156.5, 3. Colony 151, 4. Wasilla 141.5, 5. East 139, 6. Valdez 128, 7. Kodiak 116.5, 8. Service 110, 9. Lathrop 107, 10. Nome 105, 11. Bethel 101, 12. West Valley 95, 3. Kenai 84, 14. Nikiski, Skyview 78.5, 16. Kotzebue 78, 17. North Pole 77.5, 18. Homer 51.5, 19. Houston 49, 20. Soldotna 47, 21. West 43, 22. Grace Christian 40, 23. Unalakleet 33, 24. Sitka, 32, 25. Glennallen 31, 26. Seward 29.5, 27. Cordova 29, 28. Anchorage Christian 27, 29. Aniak 21.5, 30. Dimond 21, 31. New Halen 19, 32. Quinhagak 8, 33. Delta 7, 34. Eagle River 5, 35. Voznesenka 2, 36. Bartlett, Dillingham 0.

Championship Matches

98 pounds — Greg Shack, South maj. dec. Steth Hutchison, Skyview 12-4

106 — Darin Davis, Sitka inj. def. Hope Steffensen, Kenai

113 — Andrew Caballa, Kodiak dec. Brennan Girad, East 10-7 OT

120 — Levi Fried, Kodiak dec. Dave Towne, Valdez 6-4

126 — Daide Agnew, West dec. Josh Mendenhall, Bethel 10-5

132 — John Pounds, Service dec. Emery Booshu, Nome 4-3

138 — Kraig Hammond, South maj. dec. Spencer Adams, Colony 15-6

145 — Austin Rake, Valdez dec. Sam Zimmerman, Lathrop 5-0

152 — Isaac Deaton, Valdez dec. Josh Brown, Nikiski 7-2

160 — Rilen Skieens, Service pinned Trevour Chavez, Bethel 4:50

170 — Josh Wiggins, East dec. Sawyer Root, Colony 8-4

182 — Shyler Johnson, Unalakleet dec. Caleb Nielsen, Palmer 7-0

195 — Lincoln Johnson, Nikiski pinned Dalton Sauder, South 0:55

220 — Luke Wagner, Houston dec. Derek Zorea, Service 14-12

285 — Keanu King, East pinned Mitchell Daigle, Colony 1:52

Third place matches

98 pounds —Gavin Maslen, Glennallen inj. def. Alex Grey, Nome

106 — Kyle Willard, East pinned Jejomar Briones, West 0:59

113 —Gavin Alvarado, South pinned Austin Craig, Skyview 2:01

120 — Wesley Gilroy, Anchorage Christian dec. Mason Cochran, Palmer 2-1

126 — Anthony Walsh, Grace Christian dec. Zachary Ritchie, South 6-0

132 — Nate Pempek, Palmer dec. Sam Janorschke, Skyview 4-3

138 — Adam Downing, Valdez pinned Collin Bendixen, Palmer 0:22

145 — Nate McKimson, Wasilla pinned Noah Roetman, Kotzebue 2:41

152 — Moo Rogers, North Pole dec. Joe Dickinson, Lathrop 8-5

160 — Simon Root, Colony inj. def. Luke Heun, Palmer

170 — Leroy Elliot, West pinned Jacob Wharton, Lathrop 2:18

182 — Troy Streiff, Soldotna inf. def. Hyland Story, West Valley

195 — Billy Schultz, Wasilla dec. Joel Ryno, Palmer

220 — Quace Wright, Wasilla dec. Ben Davis, North Pole 5-2

285 —Cole Foster, Lathrop dec. John Alexander, Soldotna 3-2 2OT