Tiger wrestlers place fourth at district

Tiger wrestlers took it to the mats and finished in fourth place.

The Mountain Home Tigers finished fourth at the District III 4A Wrestling Tournament at Kuna Friday.

Columbia won the District Tourney with 347 points. Nampa was second with 285, Kuna, third, with 273, Mountain Home fourth with 172, followed by Middleton 132.5, Emmett 120, Bishop Kelly 94 and Skyview 74.

Mountain Home will be sending 10 wrestlers to the State 4A Wrestling Championships in Pocatello this Friday and Saturday, two of them as district champions.

Cory Pinque won the 112-pound weight class, and Kaeo Doronio at 130 pounds.

Tommy Miller finished second at 135 pounds.

Third-place efforts went to Joe Gutierrez at 112 pounds and Cody Staebler at 145 pounds. Ryan Goldsby finished fourth at 135 pounds. DeVonte McClain (119 pounds), Stefan White (130) and Michael Heinen (171) all finished fifth and James Bailey placed sixth at 286 pounds.

Kaeo Doronio goes into State seeded number one in the 130-pound weight class. Cory Pinque is the Tigers only other seeded wrestler. He is seeded sixth at 112 pounds.

Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson was pleased with the efforts by his wrestlers at the district meet.

"I'm real happy about the way the weekend went. There were a couple disappointments with guys not going on to state, but I felt we wrestled pretty well. Some of the guys that didn't make it were sick, and there's nothing I can do about that, so I'm real happy with the way the rest of them wrestled and looking forward to seeing what the guys can do.

"We don't have a lot of seeds going into state, but I think that's just a matter of how they ended up wrestling, and I think our guys are just starting to peak."

Action gets underway at Holt Arena in Pocatello at 10 a.m. Friday, and concludes with the championship matches Saturday afternoon.