Tiger wrestlers finish Boise meet with two wins

The Mountain Home Tiger wrestling team finished the Buck's Bag Boise Duals meet with two wins and four losses.

In the points race, based on points scored in their six matches, the Tigers finished 18 out of 24 teams with 190 points.

The Tigers opened on Friday against Caldwell, and lost a close match to the Cougars. They then faced Centennial and lost to the Patriots 52-20. Their final match on Friday was against Capital, and they lost a close match to the Eagles, 39-30.

Their first match on Saturday was against Borah, and they lost to the Lions 57-20.

They then faced Vallivue, and beat the Falcons 48-29.

Their final match of the day was against Eagle and they beat the Mustangs 40-36.

Kaeo Doronio went 6-0 during the two-day meet, Tommy Miller went 5-1. Travis Goldsby went 4-2, T.J. Billinger and Cody Staebler both went 3-2, DeVonte McClain and Michael Heinen both went 3-3, Joe Russell went 1-1, Junior Ruiz went 0-1, Ryan Goldsby and Tim Hazelbaker both went 2-4, Tucker Martin went 1-3, Joe Gutierrez went 1-4, and James Bailey went 0-3.

Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson went into the meet looking to see how his guys would do, and he saw some good things from his wrestlers.

"We needed the dual matches to kind of see how we were going to be, and as the tournament went on, things started improving a lot, so we had to get that under our belt. Hopefully we can do a lot better in the up and coming matches.

"We're young and inexperienced in some spots, but overall it turned out to be really good, and the kids are coming right along.

"We were really pleased with how well Kaeo Doronio and Tommy Miller did. Kaeo went 6-0 and Tommy Miller followed him up with a 5-1 record, so both of those guys did excellent, and so did the other guys, but they were definitely the outstanding wrestlers of the week."

The Tigers host their first home match of the season tonight (Wednesday) when they take on the Columbia Wildcats, who won the Boise Duals.

Coach Knudson expects a good match with the Wildcats.

"It's going to be a tough dual, but every team's a little bit different, so we'll see how that all works out. I think we're going to be able to stay with them in a lot of the weight classes, and we need to get up and wrestle and do an outstanding job, because they're tough. They're real tough and stacked, and they had some kids that moved in, but I feel good about it."

JV action gets under way at 6:30 p.m. tonight, with the varsity match at 7:30 p.m.