Warriors win title in dominant fashion

JEREMIAH BARTZ/Sports Editor

HOMER - The Wasilla Warriors were pretty much expected to win the team title at the Region III wrestling championships in Homer on Saturday and they did. But even though Wasilla did not shock anyone by winning, the Warriors very well could have surpassed even the highest of expectations.

The Warriors placed 13 grapplers in the tournament finals and earned 440 points to win the annual tournament. The Warrior point total was more than double that of second-place Kodiak's 204. Wasilla moved 23 wrestlers into next week's 4A state championships and seven Warriors will enter the final tournament of the season as Region III champions.

"I think this is the best I have ever seen," Wasilla head coach Shawn Hayes said of his team's unparalleled performance. "You go in hoping you are ready for the tournament.

"We wrestled really well. We won some matches against opponents we haven't beaten and we got some wins of big margins against wrestled we'd wrestled close."

Alan Bartelli (103), Sam Miller (112), Chris Odom (130), Mike Trudeau (145), Trevor Pempek (152), Chuck Carpenter (160) and Jake Wade (171) each won individual region titles. Bartelli, Pempek and Wade each finished the regular season unbeaten against Alaska competition. Odom finished a perfect 3-0 in his first action of the season, after missing most all of the year recovering from a knee injury.

Miller and Trudeau each knocked off the top seeds of their respective classes to win titles. Miller scored a 5-2 win over Simeon Daigle, of Homer, in the 112-pound class. Daigle had won 44 matches prior to his loss to Miller.

Trudeau notched a takedown in overtime to defeat Clark Buffington, of Skyview, in the 145-pound finals. Buffington, the second-ranked wrestler in the state at 145, pinned his way into the finals.

Pempek, the top-ranked wrestler in the state at 152, earned a tight 3-2 win over Eddie Buffington, of Skyview, in the final round.

Bartelli pinned Michaela Hutchinson, of Skyivew, to win at 103.

Wade defeated Steve O'Brien, of Kodiak, in the 171-pound finals and Carpenter won via injury forfeit at 160.

Clayton Schmidling (119), Mike Chafin (125), Duane Carpenter (130), Cesear Berrera (135), Levi Fox (140) and Chae Roskam (215) also advanced to the final round for Wasilla and placed second.

Wasilla started the tournament on the right path, winning 26 of 28 matches in Friday's first round. Hayes likened it to his squad's performance in the early rounds of last season's state tournament.

"Once the kids started seeing success, once we had a couple upsets, all the wrestlers turned it up - got a little confidence," Hayes said.

Colony finished third in the team standings with 202 points, just two shy of second-place Kodiak. The Knights advanced four grapplers to the final round and three won championships.

Dusty Killian pinned Schmidling to win the 119-pound final and Hollan Gravely pinned Chafin to win the title at 125. Gravely, a sophomore, won a region title for the second-straight season and both Gravely and Killian are ranked at the top of their weight class in the state.

Dominick Bellotte, a Colony senior, won his first region title by pinning Roskam in the 215-pound final.

Palmer finished fifth in the team standings, with 158 points, led by an all-Moose 189-pound finals. Steel Tubbs defeated teammate Lloyd Nieman 7-3.

Forty-five grapplers from the three Region III schools in the Valley will participate in the 4A state championship tournament, scheduled for Friday and Saturday at Eagle River's Chugiak High School.

The Valley schools nabbed 53 percent of the 84 spots in state reserved for Region III wrestlers. In addition to Wasilla's 23 wrestlers going to state, Colony is sending 13 and Palmer has nine in the tournament.