Lowry High School senior Nate Nelson notched a seventh-place finish in the 145-pound weight class at the Sierra Nevada Classic that concluded last week at the Reno Livestock Events Center.
Nelson went 6-2 over the two days to earn the best finish for the Buckaroos. In the preliminary round, Nelson defeated Landon Davis of Sprague, Ore., by fall in the third period. Nelson got by Spanish Springs’ Colby Preston in the first round by a 4-0 decision, and knocked off William Colbert of Tempe and Michael Zaragoza of Palma to get in the quarterfinals.
The senior lost to Ryan Ojeda of Del Oro in the quarterfinal, but came back to beat Joseph McKay of Spanish Springs in the consolation sixth round. Nelson dropped a 3-1 decision to Erik Salcido of Rancho Bernardo in the next round. Nelson earned the seventh-place finish with a 3-2 win over Jamison Rand of Shadow Ridge.
As a team, the Buckaroos were 27th with 83 points, which was ninth best among Nevada schools. Servite won the team title with 196 points, Del Oro was second at 179 and Folsom (155) was third. Marshfield (148) and Vista Murrieta (148) was fifth.
“I thought Nate had a couple good days of wrestling in a tough weight class,” said LHS coach John Brooks. “I look back at and we wrestled pretty good. You can’t say that we gave a whole lot of matches.”
Shaun Mentaberry made it to the sixth round of the consolation bracket at 170 pounds. The Buckaroo senior won his matches over Carson’s Mark Carter by a 11-6 decision and Robert Moreno of Bear Creek by pin. Mentaberry suffered a 16-10 loss in the next round to Daniel Hampton on Vista Murrieta.
Mentaberry bounced back to beat Granite Bay’s Parker Wilson by pin and Spargue’s Dane McKinney 15-3, before suffering a 7-0 loss to Mitchell Willett of Redmond.
Trase Bell (126) and Chris Karchella (285) reached the fourth round of the consolation bracket. Bell used a pin in the first period over Wooster’s Patrick McDonald in the preliminary round. He followed that by pinning McQueen’s Jared Young in 36 seconds, but was defeated in the next round by Nick Whitehead of Tahoma. The senior came back to earn wins over Israel Gill of Mazama and Christian Freund of Kelso.
After a first-round bye, Karchella lost to Sheldon Miller of Carson, but came back with wins over Angel Vallejo of Beyer and Chase Mulcahhy of Tahoma.
Ridge Ricketts (106), Quint Bell (138), Cameron Okuma (145) and Mikeas Somers (220) reached the third round of the consolation bracket.
Lowry travels to Nampa, Idaho this weekend for the Rollie Lane Invitational, which is considered one of the toughest in Idaho. Due to a scheduling conflict last year, the Buckaroos did not make the trip to Idaho.
In addition, the format has changed for the tournament. In the past, wrestlers were placed in pods in their weight class and had to wrestle out of the pod in order to advance to the bracket portion of the tournament. This year, the tournament is a regular bracketed event.
