<\/p>\n
The Montezuma-Cortez and Dove Creek wrestling teams got their money\u2019s worth last weekend, with each taking on top-tier talent.<\/p>\n
The Panthers started their weekend on Friday with a dual in Alamosa against the Mean Moose, who were the No. 1 ranked Class 3A team in the state according to Tim Yount\u2019s On The Mat Rankings.<\/p>\n
And with Alamosa fielding a full roster and M-CHS sending just six grapplers, the Mean Moose got 48 points from forfeits and cruised to a 63-9 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got punched in the face with illness and grades,\u201d said M-CHS head coach Shad Bellmire. \u201cIt really hurt not taking the full team down there. We still wouldn\u2019t have had numbers in 14 weight classes, but we could\u2019ve given them a little more. So hopefully that stuff is behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the six classes they were able to fill, only Stevie Fuentes (113) and Sonny Boren (160) came away with wins. Fuentes won in a 5-4 decision and Boren won by fall.<\/p>\n
The Panthers stayed overnight in Alamosa and then competed in the Alamosa Tournament on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Senior Josh Ramos went 2-2 and Boren went 1-2 as the Panthers\u2019 top finishers, each placing fourth in their respective weight classes.<\/p>\n
They were the only placers for M-CHS, as Kerwin Tom finished 2-2 and Fuentes, Casen Allmon, Ethan Root and Swayde Noyes all went 1-2 on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get offensive of off our feet,\u201d said Bellmire. \u201cThat was a lot of our issues there at the tournament, we weren\u2019t aggressive in the neutral position \u2013 so back to the drawing board. We\u2019ve been drilling it in their heads and we\u2019ve got to go for it. We can\u2019t sit around, we\u2019ve got to get takedowns.\u201d<\/p>\n
KIBEL SINGLED OUT IN ARIZONA<\/em><\/p>\n Junior Derek Kibel was not only the sole Dove Creek representative at the Doc Wright Invitational in Winslow, Arizona last weekend \u2013 he was also the only grappler from Colorado.<\/p>\n The tournament, which Dove Creek head coach Eric Stiasny called the toughest his team will compete in all year, featured 44 other schools from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the nice things is that we don\u2019t see anybody that we know there,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo (Derek) can just go out and let it fly and there\u2019s not the pressure of seeing somebody multiple times. And just seeing kids that are above anything that he\u2019ll see this year, he can go into the regional tournament or state tournament and know that he\u2019s already seen the toughest kids he\u2019s going to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Wrestling at 138 pounds, where he\u2019s been since the new year, Kibel won his opening match and then alternated wins and losses to finish 2-2.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first kid he got beat by was the runner-up in 4A last year in Arizona,\u201d said Stiasny. \u201cHe beat the kids that he should\u2019ve beat, some tough kids. He performed exactly liked we expected and we were happy with it, and he\u2019s progressing each week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" M-CHS and Dove Creek wrestlers get experience against top-tier talent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,44,80,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-dove-creek","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73004","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=73004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73004"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}