Competing against several larger schools at the Montrose Indian Invitational, the Dolores Bears wrestling team showed itself capable of competing at a higher level.<\/p>\n
By the time all was said and done, the seven-man Bears team ranked 10th out of the 13 teams that attended the Jan. 11 tournament.<\/p>\n
Directly contributing to the team\u2019s success, four Dolores wrestlers made the podium.<\/p>\n
Among those who stood on the podium for the Bears was senior Deano Valdez, who, after losing 8-1 to eventual 145-pound champion Travis Myers (Pueblo West), won two matches to finish third in the tournament.<\/p>\n
Also climbing onto the podium for the Bears was senior Ethen Upton, who, wrestling in his first tournament of the season, finished 4-1 and earned a third-place finish in the 170-pound division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of rust to knock off there,\u201d said Bears\u2019 coach Leo Garand. \u201c(Upton) had been injured, and his workouts had been limited. There was a lot of rust we had to knock off there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior Guy Wallace rounded out the Bears wrestlers who finished in the top four, earning a fourth place finish by virtue of his 3-2 overall record.<\/p>\n
Other Bears\u2019 wrestlers who performed well, yet failed to make the podium, included freshman Richard Martinez, freshman Tristan Medina, freshman Riley Syra and freshman Brandon Ward.<\/p>\n
Martinez finished the tournament with a 2-2 record in the 120-pound division, Medina finished 1-2 at 113-pounds, Syra finished 0-2 at 152-pounds, and Ward finished 1-2 at 106 pounds.<\/p>\n
Especially impressive amongst the group of freshman was Syra, who, according to Garand, nearly secured a takedown against top ranked 2A wrestler, Ty Coats.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Syra) was the inspiration of the day,\u2019 said Garand. \u201cIt was awesome to see him go out there and let it fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his team\u2019s overall performance, Garand expressed satisfaction with the young group\u2019s development.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re continuously getting better,\u201d said Garand. \u201cWe\u2019re improving because we\u2019re going to tougher tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of Bears tough schedule, Dolores will nest travel to Monticello on Jan. 15 before competing at the Shiprock Tournament on Jan. 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wallace, Upton and Valdez climb the podium at 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":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-122023","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\/122023","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=122023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122023"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=122023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}