Matmen win dual meet

The Mountain Home Tigers picked up another conference dual match win last week and finished tenth at the Buhl Invitational Wrestling Tournament over the weekend.

Mtn. Home 54

Skyview 36

The Mountain Home Tigers downed Skyview 54-36 last Wednesday night in dual conference action on the mats at Skyview High School in Nampa.

The Tigers picked up five wins by pins. They were Aerial Groene at 106 pounds, Charlie Shoemaker at 145, Ryan Goldsby at 152, Austin Clark at 160 and Mike Gordon at 285.

Jeff Checketts (182) and Jon Ryan (195) both won by forfeits.

Tanner Sessions (132) and Solomon Chung-Hee (220) both won by decisions.

Jaime Ibarra (113), Nick Cruz (138) and Josh Deal (170) lost by pins.

The Tigers forfeited at 120 and 126 pounds, and both Mountain Home and Skyview forfeited at 98 pounds.

Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson was pleased with his team's efforts at Skyview.

"It was a very exciting match and the kids stepped up and made it an exceptional, exciting win over Skyview.

"I know that they were thinking that they were going to win that, but I think the difference was we knew we would have to wrestle well and we did exactly that. I think they underestimated us."

The Tigers traveled to Buhl for the Buhl Invitational Tournament over the weekend and finished tenth among 28 teams competing. Minico won the meet with 176 points. Mountain Home scored 75.

Austin Clark was the only Tiger wrestler to place at Buhl. He finished second at 160 pounds.

"We only took 11 down there to Buhl," said Coach Knudson, "and we only had one of our wrestlers that did not get a win. All the rest of them had a couple wins and brought us all the way up there to 10th place out of those 28 teams, so we did have some good wrestling and some good experience, and that's exactly what we need to do to get better for district.

"Austin Clark had a very good tournament. He went through and pinned his kids all the way through to the championship match, where he ended up losing that match to a Weiser kid, but he definitely did an excellent job."

The Mountain Home JV squad went to a JV tourney at Canyon Ridge High School in Twin Falls, where they came home with a sixth-place finish.

Brent Stempfley placed second at 132 pounds, as did Jacob Ryan at 145. Joey McCullough finished third at 138 pounds. Fourth-place efforts went to Blake Spagnolo at 160 pounds, Josh Deal at 170 and Dallin Dearing at 220.

The Tigers were at Caldwell for a conference dual Tuesday night, and host Bishop Kelly on the mats in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium tonight (Wednesday).