The Battle Mountain High School wrestling team got one last chance to compete in an individual style tournament against teams from the larger divisions as they traveled to Fernley for the annual Walter Marrietta Vaquero Classic Tournament this past weekend. “This is always a great tournament to see where we are at as far as preparing for the postseason,” said BMHS coach Mitch Domagala. “The level of competition here is a very high level. We get to see what we still need to work on over the next three weeks.”
Thirty teams competed in the tournament and the Longhorns finished in second place with 172 points. Lowry captured the team championship with 299.50 points. Fernley (166) was third on its home mats and Reno (136) and Chester, Calif. (126) rounded out the top five. Pershing County, the next Northern 2A team, was ninth with 11.50 points.
Cameron Thompson led the way for the Longhorns as he pinned his way to the championship for the fourth straight year. The senior claimed the 113-pound title by pinning Lowry’s Taylor Corak in the second period. Thompson was 5-0 over the two days.
Joining him on the awards stand were Tristin Cordingley (195) in second place and Jose Guizar (120) in third.
Cordingley only had three matches and advanced to the final with wins over Lowry’s Dominic Hill and Lowry’s Joe Peterson. Cordingley lost to Reno’s Logan Hutchinson in the final.
Guizar picked up three wins to advance to the semifinals. He was knocked off by Chester’s Callum Kremer in that bout but Guizar came back with two wins, including a 13-2 decision over Lowry’s Caden Ricci for third place.
Bobby Kester, Fabian Castaneda and Mason Chopp ended the day in fourth place. Daegan McClary came home in fifth, while Jake Legarza finished in sixth place.
A number of Longhorns came up just short of bringing home some hardware. That group included Kohl Bellm, Jordan Gonzalez, Michael Malone, DeAndre Powell and Lyle Whitten.
“We wrestled well this weekend,” Domagala said. “We are competing at a high level right now which is a good sign heading into the post season.”
Battle Mountain opens up the postseason this weekend, hosting the Northern 2A League Duals. Action starts on Friday at 1 p.m. and continues on Saturday.
The duals will help set the individual seeding for the regional tournament.
The Northern 2A Regional Championships will take place on Saturday, Feb. 3, at Pershing County High School in Lovelock.
The top four finishers in each weight class advances to the NIAA State Championships at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Friday, Feb. 9.
