Competing at the Class 2A Western Region Tournament in Grand Junction on Feb. 14, the Dolores High School wrestling team finished ninth out of 14 teams and qualified three wrestlers for state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had five guys made the podium out of the seven that we brought,\u201d said Dolores head coach Leo Garand. \u201cOverall, I felt like we wrestled very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the Bears state qualifiers was 106-pound sophomore Brandon Ward, who continued his torrid late season run by winning all three of his matches and finished first overall. Ward defeated Dove Creek\u2019s Colin Hobbs 20-8 to capture the regional title.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrandon was unstoppable,\u201d said Garand. \u201cI would not be surprised to see him in the finals or as state champ the way he is wrestling right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also qualifying for state was 145-pound senior Guy Wallace, who qualified for state for the first time after winning two of his four matches and finishing fourth overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuy wrestled in one of the toughest weight classes in the state,\u201d said Garand. \u201cHe had a great day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rounding out the Bears state qualifiers was 113-pound freshman Austin Hackney, who won three of his five matches and finished fourth overall. Among Hackney\u2019s wins were a 9-5 victory over Mancos wrestler Rudy Archuleta and an 8-6 victory over Hotchkiss\u2019s Chris Lavato.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustin came out with some big surprises,\u201d Garand said. \u201cHe never gave up, and he surprised Lavato late by fighting off his back. He is peaking at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Dolores wrestlers who made the podium included 120-pound sophomore Tristan Medina and 170-pound senior Kellen Gatzke, who both finished sixth. Medina was forced to forfeit his final two matches after suffering a concussion and Gatzke wrestled with a broken collarbone.<\/p>\n
\u201cTristan was wrestling really well and was on his way to qualifying for state,\u201d said Garand. \u201cKellen showed a lot of toughness and that was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley Syra finished the day with a 1-2 record and Aiden Hopcia finished the day 0-2.<\/p>\n
Next up for Dolores will be the Colorado State Tournament, which will take place at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Feb. 19-21.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, they are in as good a shape as I can get them in,\u201d Garand said. \u201cWe\u2019re just working on technique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Look for live coverage of the tournament will be available on the Dolores Star\u2019s Facebook page and at www.doloresstar.com. Updates will also appear on twitter @imac_34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ward, Wallace and Hackney lead Dolores at regionals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114496"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}