One year ago, Mancos High School sophomore Rudy Archuleta wondered whether he would ever wrestle at the high school level.<\/p>\n
Now, the Bluejays\u2019 113-pounder is headed to the Colorado State Wrestling Tournament.<\/p>\n
Archuleta qualifies for state<\/p>\n
Competing alongside his Mancos teammates at the 2A Region 1 Tournament in Grand Junction, Feb. 14-15, Archuleta was nothing short of spectacular.<\/p>\n
After opening the Tournament with a loss to Dolores High School\u2019s Richard Martinez, Archuleta battled back, recording a decision win over Hayden\u2019s Michael Ferrier and a pin victory over Paonia\u2019s Gabe Ferguson.<\/p>\n
Although Archuleta lost his final match of the tournament to Martinez, the Bluejays\u2019 sophomore finished fourth overall, thus qualifying for the State Tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cArchuleta wrestled with so much heart,\u201d said Bluejays\u2019 head coach Grant Hobbs. \u201cHe battled just like he has all season.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his record now at 14-15 on the year, Archuleta will look to make waves at the state tournament, where he will open against John Mall High School\u2019s Marshal Ross (26-9).<\/p>\n
Archuleta\u2019s match will take place sometime between 3 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n
Bluejays show improvement<\/p>\n
While Archuleta\u2019s five teammates fell short of the state tournament, the group performed admirably, showing vast improvement from early in the year.<\/p>\n
Leading the way for the Bluejays was 145-pound sophomore Andrew Morgan (14-17), who finished the Region 1 Tournament with a 2-2 record.<\/p>\n
Also competing for the Bluejays were Everett Strazza Whalen (7-25), Bowen Strazza-Whalen (1-16), Austin Howerton (3-15) and Hunter Kourek (1-16), who wrestled well, despite failing to win a match.<\/p>\n
As a team, the Bluejays finished 11th overall in the 12-team tournament.<\/p>\n
Even with the team\u2019s low finish however, Hobbs was impressed with his group\u2019s progression.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was our first year and we made tremendous strides,\u201d said Hobbs. I am confident that we will continue getting better with experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Check the following locations for live coverage of the Colorado State Wrestling Tournament:
\n www.cortezjournal.com
\n www.facebook.com\/CortezJournal
\n Twitter @imac_34
\n *Coverage will include live updates and photographs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First-year grappler performs well, finishes fourth at regional tournament<\/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":[6370],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-121673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mt-sports","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121673","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=121673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121673"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=121673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}