The Lowry High School wrestling team is in the midst of the toughest part of its schedule where the action steps up a few notches.
That stretch began this past weekend, as the Buckaroos were on the road for the Reno Tournament of Champions, which is considered the toughest in the Untied States. Lowry finished 29th as a team, with 67 points. There were more than 115 teams from across the country that participated.
Poway (San Diego, Calif.) won the tournament with 209 points, Mountain View (Ariz.) was second with 168 points. Crook County (Ore.) was third with 167 points, Yukon (Okla.) was fourth at 151.50 and Maple Mountain was fifth with 149 points. Green Valley was the highest Nevada finisher at 18th with 86 points.
It's just such a tough tournament," said LHS coach John Brooks. "After the first couple rounds, the brackets start getting really tough. A couple of our kids didn't get best draw in some weight classes. If you get off to a slow start it just kills you. Coming back home, we have a lot to work on."
Luis Cardenas finished sixth at 285 pounds, beginning the tournament with four straight wins. The senior was the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
He needed just 71 seconds to pin Ildar Sabirov of Amador Valley in the first round. Cardenas notched a 4-1 decision over Gerardo Suarez of West in round two and followed that with a pin over Mason Odell of Broomfield in 93 seconds.
That advanced him to the semifinals, where he faces Crook County's Trevor Rasmussen and Cardenas lost a 7-4 decision. Cardenas dropped to the consolation bracket, where he lost 3-1 to Ben Boss of Wasatch and Cardenas dropped the fifth-place match 5-1 to Gage Johnson of Norman North.
Beau Billingsley (182) finished seventh on the weekend. The senior won his first three matches to reach the championship quarterfinals. He knocked off Aiden McGowan of Rosenbergin his opening match by pin. Billingsley pinned Lewiston's Cody Cromer in the second period in round two and he pinned Green Valley's Jared Temple in the third round.
Billingsley dropped to the consolation bracket with a 9-7 overtime loss to Clark Woodward of Crook County in the quarterfinals. He bounced back to beat Cory Rokovitz of Maple Mountain his first consolation bout, but lost 9-2 to Jacob Armstrong of Salem in the nest match. Billingsley came back to beat Wyatt Westfall of North Medford 5-2 for seventh place.
"They wrestled pretty good," Brooks said. "There were a couple of matches those guys had that they probably should have won. This tournament will expose your weaknesses and we saw that as an entire team. Nothing is going to be given to us and we have to go out and work hard."
Gabe Molina (132) made it to the second day of the tournament as well. Molina won his opening-round match 9-1 over Stilwell's Mikel Means, but the senior dropped his second-round match to Evan Fidelibus of Easton, who advanced to the championship semifinals.
Molina came back through the consolation bracket to win three consecutive matches, before he was knocked out by Jerod Booth on Mountain View.
Tristen Waller picked up three wins at 170 pounds, beginning with a pin in the first round over Javier Contreras of Chester. Waller lost in the second round, but came back to win twice in the consolation bracket.
Trase Bell (120) picked up two wins for the Buckaroos, while Quint Bell (126), Kevin Blanco (132), Nate Nelson (138), Blake Duncan (152) and Shaun Mentaberry (160) each picked up one victory.
"I was happy with the way Tristen and Gabe wrestled, they are looking good," Brooks said. Trase and Nate got stuck with some tough seeding.
Lowry is back in Reno on Monday and Tuesday for the Sierra Nevada Classic at the Reno Livestock Events Center. The Buckaroos finished seventh in the tournament last year.
"We are going to make some gains over the break," Brooks said. "While others are backing off a little bit, we are going to step it up. We need to get our conditioning better and I will fix that. We usually go to the Rollie Lane and were not this year and that is the tournament where it is the turning point for us. It has to be the Sierra Nevada Classic this year."[[In-content Ad]]
