Tiger wrestlers lose to Middleton, go 3 and 4 in invitational tourney

The Mountain Home Tigers dropped a conference wrestling dual match at Middleton last Thursday night and then traveled to Pocatello where they went 3-4 at the Dick Fleischman Invitational.

Middleton 39

Mtn. Home 28

The Tigers battled back from a 27-7 deficit to come within two points, 30-28, with two matches to go, but lost by decision and pin in the final two matches to fall short, 39-28, to the Vikings at Middleton Thursday night.

Stefan White and Kaeo Doronio picked up wins by pins, White at 130 pounds and Doronio at 135. Joe Gutierrez won by forfeit at 119 pounds, Michael Heinen won a major decision at 189, and Tim Hazelbaker (171) and Cory Pinque (112) also won decisions.

James Bailey (285), DeVonte McClain (125) and Junior Ruiz (140) lost decisions, Joe Russell (152), John Ryan (160) and Travis Goldsby (145) lost by pins, and the Tigers forfeited at 103 and 215.

"We've been trying to get geared up and doing the right things, and we made some mistakes in those matches," said Tiger Wrestling Coach Lynn Knudson of the Middleton match. "We were real close in quite a few of them, and gave up some pins where we shouldn't have, otherwise we could have come out of that match with a win, but we had some bad things happen to us."

The Tigers went to the Dick Fleischman Invitational Pocatello Duals over the weekend and went 3-4 in the two-day tourney.

The Tigers dropped a 37-35 match to North Fremont, beat Sugar-Salem 57-18, lost to Hillcrest 40-22, beat Preston 41-33, lost to Highland of Pocatello (which won the meet) 58-15, lost to Pocatello (which finished second) 54-18 and beat Century of Pocatello 45-18.

Kaeo Doronio went 7-0 for the meet, Michael Heinen went 6-1, Ryan Goldsby went 5-1, Junior Ruiz, Joe Russell, Tim Hazelbaker and James Bailey all went 4-3, Cory Pinque went 3-4, DeVonte McClain and Stefan White both went 2-5, Travis Goldsby went 1-2, and Zach Pomerantz went 0-7.

Coach Knudson was pleased with their efforts at the Pocatello duals.

"It went well. I'm pretty happy. We had lots of improvements, and that's all we can expect this year, with us being real young. We did have one of our wrestlers go undefeated -- Kaeo Doronio -- and it's a really, really tough dual tournament, and Mike Heinen ended up one match away from going perfect, and lots of the other ones winning three, four or five matches.

"We wrestled seven matches, so coming out of there with three wins wasn't bad for as young as we are, I was happy with it."

The Tigers host Bishop Kelly and Buhl for dual matches tonight for Senior Night and close out their regular season schedule at Jerome for a dual tomorrow night.