First, thank you to everyone that came Thursday night and supported the wrestlers!  I have not seen that gym packed like that for a long time, and, boy, it was a rockin’ with teams coming from West Grand, Middle Park and Hannah-Elk Mountain, Wyoming!

  106 pound Savian Wadsworth won 4 matches by pinning Jason Nelson and Tabitha Mabe of HEM and Cole Tracy and Micheal Lengel of West Grand. Kanin Wadsworth also pinned these same 4 wrestlers. Kind of a funny thing is both Savian and Kanin got a black eye, same eye from the same wrestler!  Micheal Lengel issued a shiner to both. My thought is a black eye is better than any gold medal.

   120 pound TJ Richard had 3 matches winning 2 by beating Colin Jennings of Middle Park and Daniel Terwilliger of West Grand and lost to 2011 3a state qualifier Adam Visconti of Middle Park.

   126 pound senior Alex Telck had a great night!  He won his first match with Hugh Campbell of Middle Park and lost his 2^nd against Austin Faeth of West Grand.  He then went on to win his last home match in the North Park gym Kade Silvernale of Middle Park.  This was a silent goal of Alex’s that he had made for himself. Congratulations, Alex!

  Derrick Richard had 2 matches and pinned both.  His first was RJ Seaman of HEM and 2^nd was 160 pound wrestler Nick Brynoff of Middle Park

  Angel Arredondo at 170 won 2 matches and lost.  He lost to Nick Brynoff of Middle Park and beat Connor Jennings  and John Eyers of Middle Park

  Adrian Cereceres at 195 lost to 3a state champion Brian Macchione of Middle Park and Kyle Benefield of HEM but won against Daniel Arellano of Middle Park and Dakota Falk of HEM

   Heavyweight Steven Escobedo lost to Justin Irene of HEM and Justin Halley of Middle Park.

  On Saturday, we loaded up to go to 10,600 feet elevation for the Lake County tournament in Leadville. A 12 team tourney with teams from Del Norte, Buena Vista, Florence and Eagle Valley to name a few.  North Park placed 6^th as a team.

   To start off the day, Savian pinned Arthur Brehm of Florence in 18 seconds then beat Chance Boehm of Florence 6-4.  He lost 8-4 to Cal Cole of Florence who is ranked number 7 in class 3a by Tim Yount on the mat rankings. At this point I was thinking this was a North Park vs. Florence dual . After the loss to Cole,  Savian pinned Ray Bullock of Eagle Valley and then beat Lauryn Bruggink of Soroco 5-3 for 3^rd place on the day. Savian and Lauryn have been butting heads all season; they are now 2-2 on the season.  Savian beat Bruggink at the 2011 regionals to give him 1 win more, that is the last time the 2 will wrestle until regionals.

 Kanin  hit the brick wall from once again ……..Florence, Dillo Bellino,  ranked #4 in 3a.   Bellino pinned Kanin in one minute. Then Kanin returned the favor to Derek Mondragon of Buena Vista by pinning him in 1 minute then went on to beat Cole Tracy of West Grand 10-6 and lost to Colton Martindale of Soroco 10-6.  Although Kanin did not place, he was 2-2 on the day which is not bad for this tourney.

  TJ was pinned in his 1^st match by Jacob Gallegos of Lake County and won his 2^nd by tech fall 20-5 with Tyler Million of Eagle valley and was pinned by Terwilliger of West Grand.

  Alex Telck had the best day he has had this season. He started off winning his first match by pinning Kade Silvernale of Middle Park in 56 seconds.  On Thursday night, it took him the whole match before he pinned the panther.  Then he wrestled  number 2 ranked in 3a, Eli Perez,  from Buena Vista.   Telck wrestled Perez 4 minutes and 39 seconds before he got pinned; a week ago this match would not have lasted that long.   Perz won the tourney champ and the outstanding wrestler award. In Alex’s 3^rd match he pinned Chris Comroe of Eagle Valley which put him in the consolation finals with Austin Faeth of West Grand.  At home on Thursday, Alex was pinned by Faeth in a close match.  Today the wildcat dominated the mustang; the 1^st period was scoreless with both wrestlers attacking but not able to break the others defense; 2^nd period Telck chose down, escaped and instantly got the takedown making the score 3-0.  We got a penalty point when Austin was bending Alex’s thumb back to make it 4-0.  Going into the 3^rd period,  Faeth chose down and Telck did everything he could right and got 3 nearfall points with an arm bar then 3 more nearfall points with a double chicken wing with 15 seconds left!  Alex couldn’t hold onto the chicken wing and Faeth got a reversal at the end of the match with Telck the victor, 10-2 and 3^rd place.

   Derrick had a great day too at 152 pounds.  His 1^st match he pinned Shawn Rinaldis of Mtn. Valley and lost his next match with #8 rank 3a John Lopez of Buena Vista 9-4.  He  then pinned Edgar Chavez of Eagle Valley and Kameron Parker of Florence then beat #7 rank 3a Scott Sandoval of Florence in a barn burner . Derrick attacked Sandoval on the whistle for the takedown and 2 nearfall points then Scott reversed Richard and got 3 nearfall points putting us into the 2^nd period down 5-4. Derrick chose down for the 2^nd period  and reversed Sandoval for 2 and got 3 more nearfall points but before the period was over Scott reversed Derrick for 2 and got 3 nearfall points ending the 2^nd with the wildcat down 10-9. Third period Sandoval chose down and Derrick let the wildcat out of the cage! Richard took control and turned Sandoval to his back twice for 2 nearfall points each to add 4 points to his score then turned him again with a different hold and got 3 more points and changed holds again to a tight half-nelson to finish the match, almost pinning the Florence wrestler and giving Derrick the win 19-10. The amount of heart Derrick displayed in this match is un-measurable, at any time if Richard would have given up at all the match would have been lost . Derrick placed 4^th with a 4 and 1 record on the day.  Because of the 5 match rule, his 5^th match was with Sandoval in the consolation semi-finals and Lopez of Buena Vista only had 4 matches so he was the 3^rd place winner. Once again proving that Derrick can compete with the top wrestlers even in 3a in the state.

 170 pound Angel Arredondo placed 2^nd by pinning Josh Schlaecher of Eagle Valley and Connor Jennings of Middle Park and losing to Brennan Pacheco of Del Norte

 Adrian was in a round robin of 6 and placed 4^th losing to 2011 3a state champion Brian Macchione of Middle Park, Nate Reed of Buena Vista and Brian Bothell of Del Norte but beat Matt States of Florence and Zach Buffalo of Summit.

   Steven Escobedo was in a round robin of 5 and came close to winning a couple but couldn’t quite get it done.

  Again, thank you to the home crowd. These guys were excited to show North Park what they are made of and the progress they are making. Austin and I are so proud of what they are doing competition wise and how hard they work to get what they want. This weekend we are off to a new tournament to us at the Thin Air tourney in Estes Park.