Warriors win battle for team title

PALMER — Entering the conference championships, the run for the Northern Lights crown was a three-horse race.

But by Day 2, it had narrowed down to a heavyweight battle between a pair of Alaska wrestling powers — Wasilla and Colony.

With 10 wrestlers in the finals, the Warriors wanted to make sure the team title didn’t come down to the heavier weights.

Wasilla crowned five champions during the first nine matches of the final round and held on to win the team title of the Northern Lights Championships wrestling tournament at Palmer High School Saturday afternoon.

Runner-up Colony, which fell only 10.5 points shy in the final team standings, advanced a half-dozen wrestlers to the finals. There were only two matches with a Knight facing a Warrior — Wasilla’s Ryker Steiner vs. Colony’s Spencer Adams at 132 and Wasilla’s Quace Wright vs. Colony’s Ian MacKenzie at 220 pounds.

Wright and MacKenzie have been two of the top wrestlers in their class all season. They’d met in close matches multiple times this season. Each even has an overtime victory against the other this year.

As close as the top two squads were in the team standings Saturday, there was potential the team title could have come down to that match.

“That match with Quace and Ian MacKenzie. We knew that would be a battle. Every time they’ve met it’s been by one or two points. We just needed to buckle down so it wasn’t left up to that match,” said Wasilla’s Shannon Carpenter, one of Wasilla’s five NLC champions.

In one of the more exciting matches of the final round, MacKenzie was able to outlast Wright and slip away with the slim 3-2 victory. But luckily for Wasilla, the Warriors had scored enough points early in the round to avoid a late rush by Colony that included back-to-back Knights titles by Simon Root and Sawyer Root at 170 and 182.

“Coming in, we knew Colony was right behind us,” said Wasilla’s Bryce Serna, who earned an individual title at 152 pounds. “We’ve been working hard on the mat. Constant hard work, and it’s paying off.”

Logan Albrecht (98 pounds), Carpenter (126), Ryker Steiner (132), Nate McKimson (145) and Serna each won their weight class to earn wrestling gold for Wasilla. Bryan McKimson (98), Brandon Abbott (113), Andrew Shannon (120), Blake Marks (152) and Wright (220) all wrestled in the final and took second.

“I was pretty stoked about it,” Carpenter said of the Warriors ability to place 10 wrestlers in the finals. “It totally exceeded my expectations.”

Longtime Wasilla head coach Shawn Hayes said sweeping two weight classes was also big.

“It was really nice getting two guys in at 98 and (145),” Hayes said. “That’s a lot of points.”

Most expected the race for the team title to be a battle.

“I knew it was going to be close. Palmer was tough. Colony was tough. We were in it,” Hayes said.

Serna said the athletes expected the same thing.

“We knew it was going to be tough,” Serna said. “The top three teams are all super competitive, just high-end teams in the state.”

Carpenter and McKimson pinned their opponents during the final round, and Serna won by major decision.

“We knew it was going to be a battle. We just needed to get pins, pins and more pins,” Carpenter said.

Albrect opened the final round with a tight 4-0 win over teammate Bryan McKimson. Carpenter, who was having his way with Kodiak’s Eddy Burris in the 126-pound final, pinned Burris in the second period.

Steiner scored a big win at 132, beating a Colony rival, Spencer Adams, 6-2. Nate McKimson pinned Marks, a teammate, in the first period at 145. Serna nearly scored a technical fall, using a number of takedowns to beat Palmer’s Hunter Molesky in the finals at 152.

“I was really impressed with Shannon and Bryce in the finals,” Hayes said. “All those guys did a great job.”

Simon Root and Sawyer Root each won their second straight NLC title to lead the Knights. Both had to win tough battles with Palmer wrestlers to win their weight classes.

In the 170-pound final, Root and Palmer’s Masen Swineheart were scoreless after the first period, and Root held a slim 3-0 lead after two periods. In the 182-pound final, Palmer’s Caleb Nielsen surprised Sawyer Root with an early takedown and led 2-0.

Nielsen burst from the bottom position right after the second period whistle to record an escape and extend his lead to 3-1. But the key point of the match came when Root was able to grab a pair of points to tie the score at 3 with five seconds left in the second period. With the final seconds ticking off the clock, Nielsen shot it, Root was able to avoid and spun around to score his points.

Root iced the match with an escape and takedown in the third period.

In the 220 final, MacKenzie took a 1-0 lead with an escape early in the second period and pushed his advantage to 3-0 with a takedown with 49 seconds left. Wright scored an escape late in the second, and another early in the third. The second escape cut the margin to 3-2.

Adams (132), Lucas (138) and Lucas Conway (160) also wrestled in the finals and placed second.

Palmer, which finished third in the team standings, had seven wrestlers in the finals. Mason Cochran (120), Luke Heun (160) and Brian Thompson (285) won championships for the Moose.

Thompson had to get by a teammate to score his second straight NLC title. The junior edged senior Cole Frohling 7-3 in the heavyweight final. Heun won a title by pinning Conway in the first period at 160.

In arguably the most exciting period of the final round, Cochran and Shannon traded reversals during the third period of the 120-pound final. But Cochran was able to secure a 6-4 win.

Shannon, who was a runner-up in the NLC meet last year also, held a 2-1 lead in the third. Cochran used a reversal with 50 seconds left to jump ahead 3-2, and Shannon took a 4-3 lead with a reversal of his own. Cochran took a 5-4 lead with 20 seconds left.

With Cochran leading 6-4 in the final seconds, Shannon shot in, but the pair fell out of bounds before the Wasilla grappler could be awarded any points.

Molesky (152), Swineheart (170), Nielsen (182) and Frohling (285) finished second for the Moose.

Valley programs held 23 of the 30 spots in the NLC final round and advanced 55 wrestlers to the upcoming state tourney, which starts Friday at Bartlett High School in Anchorage. The top five wrestlers from each weight class advance, giving the Valley 55 of the NLC’s 75 spots at state.

Colony led all with 20 top-5 finishes. Wasilla pushed 19 through and Palmer is sending 16 grapplers to the 4A meet.

Kodiak, Kenai and Soldotna combined for 20 in the top-5. Although Kenai moved only six into the state tourney, two will head there as region champions.

Hope Steffensen, who was named the NLC Most Outstanding Wrestler of the championships, won her crown by pinning Kodiak’s Joel Valdez in the second period of the 106-pound final.

Steffensen came out strong, taking a 2-0 lead with an early takedown. She led 4-0 when she pinned Valdez. Ellery Steffensen won by pin at 138.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and find him by searching Valley Sports Huddle on Facebook.

Team scores:

1. Wasilla 368; 2. Colony 357.5; 3. Palmer 316; 4. Kodiak 227; 5. Kenai 105.5; 6. Soldotna 30.

Championship finals:

98 pounds — L. Albrecht, Was d. B. McKimson, Was 4-0; 106 — H. Steffensen, Ken p. Jo. Valdez, Kod 3:26; 113 — A. Caballa, Kod t.f. B. Abbott, Was 15-0; 120 — M. Cochran, Pal d. A. Shannon, Was 6-4; 126 — S. Carpenter, Was p. E. Burris, Kod 3:18; 132 — R. Steiner, Was d. S. Adams, Col 6-2; 138 — E. Steffensen, Ken p. K. Lucas, Col 1:14; 145 — N. McKimson, Was p. B. Marks, Was 1:50; 152 — B. Serna, Was m.d. H. Molesky, Pal 20-7; 160 — L. Heun, Pal p. L. Conway, Col 1:13; 170 — Si. Root, Col d. M. Swineheart, Pal 8-3; 182 — Sa. Root, Col d. C. Nielsen, Pal 6-3; 195 — K. Powers, Kod win by inj. def. T. Bigley, Kod; 220 — I. MacKenzie, Col d. Q. Wright, Was 3-2; 285 — B. Thompson, Pal d. C. Frohling, Pal 7-3.

Third-place matches:

98 — B. Adams, Col p. W. Spencer, Col 1:26; 106 — S. Simpson, Col p. I. Lynch, Was 3:00; 113 — J. Nero, Col m.d. J. Sanders, Pal 12-4; 120 — L. Fried, Kod d. Chan. Fannon, Col 7-1; 126 — M. VanderMartin, Col d. Chas. Fannon, Col 9-8; 132 — W. McGann, Pal d. C. Campbell, Was 7-5; 138 — C. Bendixen, Pal p. K. Gonzalez, Kod 4:21; 145 — E. Fouch, Pal d. C. Ray, Col 6-4 OT; 152 — D. Morrow, Was d. K. Sparkman, Pal 5-2; 160 — D. Carter, Ken p. C. Minnick, Was 4:18; 170 — C. White, Pal d. Z. Doan, Col 7-2 OT; 182 — M. Dobbs, Was p. Z. Rockstad, Was 2:54; 195 — A. Rench, Col d. J. Ryno, Pa 2:19; 220 — B. Button, Pal p. N. Wandersee, Kod 4:16; 285 — J. Alexander, Sol p. M. Daigle, Col 0:48.

Fifth-place matches:

98 — J. Valdez, Kod p. B. Conrad, Pal 2:31; 106 — M. Kageyama, Kod m.d. T. Jackson, Col 13-0; 113 — K. Harper, Was p. M. Bracker, Col 4:46; 113 — J. Small, Kod d. J. Gentz, Was 11-4; 120 — A. Molesky, Pal p. B. Dyer, Pal 0:40; 132 — A. Troxell-Tom, Ke d. T. Eluska, Kod 9-0; 138 — P. Inglet, Was d. W. Wall, Was 6-5; 145 — S. Samson, Col d. J. LeVan, Kod 5-1; 152 — R. Fredrickson, Col d. K. Nash, Col 3-2; 160 — M. Aho, Ken d. J. Lochman, Kod 9-3; 170 — K. Hunter, Ken p. J. Ouellette, Kod 2:03; 182 — T. Strief, Sol d. A. Knowles, Col 11-2; 195 — B. Schultz, Was d. C. Smith, Pal 10-6; 220 — Sil. Root, Col p. D. Best, Sol 1:40; 285 — S. Sega, Kod p. J. Dragseth, Ken 2:32.