{"id":29693,"date":"2024-01-18T02:02:49","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T09:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/unlucky-panthers-drop-dual-at-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:01:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:01:33","slug":"unlucky-panthers-drop-dual-at-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/unlucky-panthers-drop-dual-at-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlucky Panthers drop dual at Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez freshman Keaton Curleyhair works to prevent Bayfield's Hunter Mars from escaping during their 113-pound match Tuesday evening, Jan. 16, in Intermountain League dual action. Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Defeated in the first four bouts Tuesday evening, Montezuma-Cortez proceeded to take the last four against hosting Bayfield, with only forfeit points separating the 3A Panthers from an Intermountain League dual win over the 3A Wolverines.<\/p>\n

Beginning with sophomore Rusty Snyder\u2019s 6-2 win over Reese Appenzeller at 132 pounds, M-CHS began chopping away at BHS\u2019 strong start and got as close as 26-15 \u2013 via senior David Vreeken\u2019s first-period pin of Donovan \u201cDante\u201d Candelaria at 157 \u2013 before ultimately losing 38-21. Bayfield\u2019s Keegan Johnston (150), Caelan Ramos (165) and Justin Westbrook (175) each stepped onto the mat unopposed, earning the Wolverines 18 deciding points in what was otherwise a result satisfactory to the visiting skipper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really happy with my upper weights, from 32s on up; we didn\u2019t lose a match there. But my guys \u2026 all performed pretty well,\u201d said Montezuma-Cortez head coach Ryan Daves. \u201cMy littler guys, they just need to open up; they\u2019re freshmen, they\u2019re a little timid, and they were having their nerves get to them a little bit. They open up in practice and wrestle really well, but when we go to matches they\u2019re getting a little nervous. So we\u2019ve got to get them over that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely got some advance varsity kids and some beginner\/JV kids,\u201d Vreeken said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to tell because our newer kids get tough kids \u2013 like Keaton (Pickering) \u2013 but I think as a whole, as a team we\u2019ve progressed a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior David Vreeken pins Bayfield's Donovan 'Dante' Candelaria during their 157-pound match Tuesday evening, Jan. 16, in Intermountain League dual action. Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez freshman Keaton Curleyhair works to prevent Bayfield's Hunter Mars from escaping during their 113-pound match Tuesday evening, Jan. 16, in Intermountain League dual action. Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Often rated this winter in Class 3A\u2019s top five at his weight, the senior Pickering voluntarily surrendered several escape points to Panther freshman Zane Frazier in their tussle at 126 pounds in order to work as many moves as possible. Pickering built up a 16-7 lead during the opening two-minute period with relative ease, then secured a 22-7 technical-fall win during the second \u2013 increasing Bayfield\u2019s lead to 20-0, after teammate Porter Sutherlin pinned freshman Orion Martineau in just 29 seconds at 120.<\/p>\n

Teammate Hunter Mars had defeated freshman Keaton Curleyhair 8-2 at 113, and Connor Martindale got the show started at 106 by building up a 5-0 lead on freshman Teagun Samora, then notching a pin 0:53 into the second.<\/p>\n

But after Snyder at last got the Panthers on the scoreboard, and neither squad sent out a 138-pounder, M-CHS senior Airoughn Morris pinned BHS\u2019 Coan Naranjo 1:20 into their clash at 144. After Johnston claimed his forfeit points, Vreeken \u2013 who\u2019d already stepped onto the mat, unaware there was a forfeit preceding his bout \u2013 pinned Candelaria, also a senior, with fewer than 10 seconds left in the first period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat 150-pounder walked out and I was a little confused,\u201d Vreeken admitted. \u201cMy coach told me that I was going to be in a tough match. And it was good, but I was kind of expecting a little more out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panther senior 190-pounder Hunter Goodall concluded the dual (neither team had a 215 or 285 available) pinning BHS\u2019 Micah Cornelia in just 30 seconds \u2013 a strong way to send Montezuma-Cortez, coming off a fourth-place showing at the Nucla\/Norwood Invitational (1\/13), into preparing for an upcoming trip to the Jan. 19-20 Page, Arizona, Sand Devil Classic.<\/p>\n

Day 1 action is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., with the Saturday session starting at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to explain it, but different states wrestle differently \u2013 and Arizona has a different feel,\u201d said Vreeken. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s easier and other times you\u2019re really confused on what\u2019s going on \u2026 so I think it\u2019ll make me better all around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like that Page tournament; we go down there and there\u2019s usually 40-plus schools,\u201d Daves said, \u201cfrom the not-very-good end clear up to the really-good end. For my guys that need to work on things, early in the tournament we can get really good matches. And for my veterans that need good, hard matches, we\u2019ll get them as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forfeits prove decisive in 38-21 league loss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,36,29,1205],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-wrestling"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29693","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=29693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80828,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29693\/revisions\/80828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29693"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}