Business as usual.
That was the rallying cry for the Kentwood High wrestling team Wednesday night, which felt the heat from surging Kent-Meridian, but was able to cool off the Royals 40-25 in a South Puget Sound League North Division dual meet.
Kent-Meridian was coming off a team title from the Liberty Invitational on Saturday. On Wednesday night, however, the Royals couldn’t solve Kentwood, which received pins from Ruben Navejas (112), Teddy Zografos (130), Matt Gordon (145) and Nathan Herrick (275) en route to the victory.
The Royals hung with the Conquerors until the third-to-last match of the evening, when Herrick dispatched of K-M freshman Alex Hawkins in 49 seconds. Herrick’s pin gave the Conks a 34-19 advantage with two matches to go, essentially sealing the win.
“I just wanted to wrestle my match and take care of business, the rest would just take care of itself,” said Herrick, who took third at state last year and who improved to 10-5 for the season.
The rest did indeed take care of itself as the Conquerors improved to 2-2 in North Division dual meets. Kent-Meridian dropped to 2-2 with the loss.
“We thought we had them tonight, they just came out on top,” lamented K-M’s Andrew Smith, who worked one of the Royals’ two pins of the night, dominating Kentwood’s Brandon Miller in 1:55.
Kentwood also received a solid return from 119-pounder Hayden Peterson, who suffered a mild concussion a little more than two weeks ago during a tournament. Competing in his first match since the injury, Peterson worked over K-M’s Alec Moss to a 16-0 technical fall in the night’s opening match.
“It felt great to be out there again,” said Peterson, a state participant two years ago who improved to 14-6 for the season.
Kentwood won 9 of the 14 matches of the night, the quickest of which came from returning state champion Ruben Navejas. Navejas, who typically wrestles at 103 pounds, bumped up to 112 for the night’s final match and pinned K-M’s Carrillo Massagli in 39 seconds to improve to 21-1 this winter.
Navejas won the 103-pound state crown last year and it was anticipated he would take on K-M lightweight Jesus Valdez, who took fifth at state a year ago. Instead, Valdez remained at 103 and did what he has done all season – win. Appearing to be in state-tournament form, Valdez pinned Kentwood freshman Jamiel Jackson in 2:47 to improve his overall season mark to 22-1.
“I knew we had a shot (to beat Kentwood),” said K-M coach Todd Owens. “I knew we had a shot at it. We needed a couple key turnarounds and we were pretty close at 145 and 152.”
Kentwood led from start to finish. The Conquerors bolted out to a 15-0 advantage behind wins from Peterson, Davinder Saini and Zografos. K-M followed with wins from Nguyen and Andrew Smith to cut the deficit to 15-9, but were unable to keep up the momentum. The pivotal point of the meet came at 145 pounds, where K-M freshman Joshua Smith, the younger brother of Andrew, took a 9-4 lead over Kentwood’s Matt Gordon. Gordon, however, proved to have a bit more left in the tank, working a pin midway through the second period.
Kentwood’s Alex Hough followed with a hard-fought win over K-M’s Thomas Kemp, 5-1. The two wins from Gordon and Hough were vital, Kentwood coach Ken Sroka said.
“The big highlights of the meet were Matt Gordon and Alex Hough. Once (Gordon) got under control, even though he was down, he got a fall,” said Sroka. “And Hough, who was wrestling up a weight, gutted out a good win.”
Kent-Meridian hasn’t beaten Kentwood during Owens’ seven-year tenure. However, Wednesday night’s meet proved to be the closest battle the two rival schools have enjoyed in many, many years.
The tight-fisted finish also illustrated how far Kent-Meridian has come this season. Kent-Meridian entered the season with a 6-54 record against North Division foes dating back to 2001. During that span, K-M has not won more than two dual meets in a single season. This season, however, the Royals now have a 5-4 overall dual meet record and last week’s tournament title to go along with it.
“This is a group of kids who make a difference,” Owens said “This year is probably the best leadership I’ve had since being here. We have four seniors who are leaders and who want to wrestle. They show up, work hard and lead by example.”
Those four seniors – Valdez, Andrew Smith, Nick Lemmon (160) and Thomas Reinhart (189) – came away with four of K-M’s five wins on Wednesday.
The difference in the Royals is noticeable, Sroka said.
“They’re a very much improved team,” Sroka said. “It was anybody’s ballgame. It’s not like we came out and dominated. I thought they wrestled well, very well. It could have gone the other way very easily.”
STATE RANKINGS
TEAM PTS.
1. Lake Stevens 109
2 . Tahoma 99
3. University 85
4. Kentwood 82
5. Graham-Kapowsin 79
6. Mead 72
7. Auburn 56
8. Heritage 52
9. Emerald Ridge 49
10. Moses Lake 43
* Rankings provided by www.washingtonwrestlingreport.com
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