Wrestlers debut with win at Emmett

The Mountain Home Tigers opened their wrestling season with a conference dual win at Emmett last week before losing a conference dual at Columbia.

They also won the Calhoun Classic Wrestling Tournament at Nyssa, Ore.

Mountain Home 65, Emmett 15

Mountain Home won 12 of 15 matches at Emmett in its season-opening 65-15 dual match win over the Huskies last Tuesday.

Winning by pins for the Tigers were Josh Saporta at 120 pounds, Conner Carpenter at 126, Levi Abrahamson at 138, Blake Spagnolo at 170, Tyler Ogaard at 182 and Solomon Chung-Hee at 220.

Winning by forfeits were Jacob Lucas at 98 pounds, Aerial Groene at 113 and Josh Deal at 195.

Tanner Sessions won by Technical Fall (18-3) at 145 pounds.

Winning by decisions were Jacob Ryan (5-3) at 160 pounds and Dallin Dearing (6-1) at 285.

Tyler McCall lost by decision (6-3) at 152 pounds and Seth Dolan (106) and Bobby Dominguez (132) both lost by pins.

Tiger wrestling coach Lynn Knudson was happy to open the season with a win.

"It was a nice effort by our team at Emmett. It was a good way to start the season."

Columbia 79, Mountain Home 3

The Tigers wrestled at Columbia High School in Nampa on Thursday night and came away on the short end of a 79-3 match.

Solomon Chung-Hee was the Tigers' only winner. He won a decision at 220 pounds.

"We didn't match up well with them, and it was definitely a wake-up call for us as far as what we need to do better in the room and actually for the kids, and we talked to them about how they need to be pushing each other."

The Tigers went to the Calhoun Classic at Nyssa, Ore., on Friday and Saturday and came home with the championship trophy.

The Tigers placed first with 175.5 points, Fruitland was second with 162, Ontario was third with 125, Nyssa had 103.5 and Parma was fifth with 95 points.

Aerial Groene won the 106-pound weight class at Nyssa.

Josh Zaporta and Jacob Ryan both finished second, Saporta at 113 pounds, Ryan at 160.

Third place efforts went to Levi Abrahamson (138), Tanner Sessions (145), Blake Spagnolo (170) and Solomon Chung-Hee (220).

Finishing fourth were Seth Dolan (106), Bobby Dominguez (132), Josh Deal (195) and Dallin Dearing (285).

"We went down there just wanting to improve on how we wrestled against Columbia the other night and our kids really wrestled tough at Nyssa," Knudson said.

"We came out of there with a championship and didn't even expect that. We were just going down there to improve our wrestling skills and do better on our moves and good things happened. We had some kids that really wrestled well, with 11 of them placing, of the 14 that we took, in the top four spots, so it really turned out out well."

Saturday was also the sixth annual Gary Miles Sub Varsity Tournament in Mountain Home, where the Tigers finished second behind Canyon Ridge of Twin Falls. The River Hawks won it with 185 points. Mountain Home finished second with 165, Centennial was third with 91, Jerome fourth with 75, Glenns Ferry fifth with 34 and Rimrock sixth with 18.

Taking first-place medals were Jacob Lucas at 106 pounds, Jordan Pendleton at 132, Tyler Heath at 138 and Brett Stempfley at 145.

Nick Shoemaker finished second at 132, as did Garrett Vines at 170.

David Welle finished third at 106 pounds and fourth-place efforts went to Conner Carpenter (126), Aaron Spencer (145) and Abraham Salas (152). Fifth-place efforts went to Bryce Darnell (170) and Jose Ortiz (285).

"We finished second behind Canyon Ridge, and had a number of kids that placed in that, so we had a good outcome there with good numbers, and good mat-time and improving our skills," Coach Knudson said.

This week, the Tigers have a conference dual Thursday, Dec. 13, at Nampa against the Bulldogs. Friday and Saturday, the varsity goes to the Bonneville Duals in Idaho Falls with the junior varsity squad heading to Twin Falls for the Bearcat Tourney.