<\/p>\n
After going head to head against On The Mat\u2019s\u2019 No. 1 ranked Class 3A team in Alamosa the week prior, the Montezuma-Cortez wrestling team tussled with another top-five opponent on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Panthers took a hit due to illness and eligibility and sent out just seven grapplers in their 63-9 dual loss to the Mean Moose on Jan. 13. But hosting No. 3 ranked Centauri Falcons on Thursday, they put out their most complete slate since before the break, filling nine weight classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting healthy and getting grades back up is helping,\u201d said M-CHS head coach Shad Bellmire. \u201cBut there\u2019s still some little things we need to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wrestling up a class to get a match, sophomore Shawn Higgins got the Panthers out on the right foot with a 7-2 decision win over 113-pounder Jeramy Coombs. The two were tied 2-2 after the first period, but Higgins took control in the second and rode out the third for the win.<\/p>\n
Stevie Fuentes also wrestled up a class to see some action, and he was paired up against On The Mat\u2019s No. 1 ranked Class 3A wrestler at 120 pounds in Joe Chavez.<\/p>\n
Chavez tallied a 15-1 advantage after two periods before pinning Fuentes in the third. And although Fuentes likely won\u2019t see Chavez again as he\u2019ll drop back to his natural 113-pound class, Bellmire said it was good for the sophomore to get experience competing with one of the state\u2019s best wrestlers.<\/p>\n
Centauri got a forfeit at 126 pounds to lead the dual 12-3, but Matthew Broughton gave M-CHS a boost with a dominating 11-0 major-decision win at 132 pounds to pull the team within five.<\/p>\n
The Falcons then rattled off two straight, with No. 1 ranked 138-pounder Quinton Montaque pinning Ethan Root and No. 4 ranked 145-pounder Brandon Buhr coming away with a close 7-4 decision win over Josh Ramos.<\/p>\n
M-CHS responded with two of its own consecutive W\u2019s, as Briggs Durbin won by fall at 160 pounds and then Sonny Boren pulled out a 6-4 decision at 170 pounds.<\/p>\n
But leading 21-16, Centauri closed things out in the last three classes.<\/p>\n
Weston Huffaker defeated Swayde Noyes by fall, Bennie Chacon got a 16-0 tech fall win over Kerwin Tom, and then the Falcons\u2019 heavyweight Casey Fringer tacked on six forfeit points to give Centauri a 38-16 win.<\/p>\n
Following the dual, Bellmire said that his team needs to be more aggressive and look for takedowns instead of sitting back and letting opponents come to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be the hammer, not the nail,\u201d he said. \u201cSo when we\u2019re on our feet we\u2019ve got to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers were scheduled to go to Page, Arizona for a weekend tournament, but it was canceled due to weather.<\/p>\n
However, that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019ll take the weekend off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to practice on Friday and Saturday,\u201d Bellmire said. \u201cWe\u2019re still going to get after it. We\u2019ve got to treat it just like a tournament and get matches in the room. We\u2019ve got to keep our shape and fine tune some things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No. 1 Alamosa, Montezuma-Cortez wrestlers host No. 3 Centauri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73020","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=73020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73020"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}