Pirate Wrestlers Sweep Duals; Compete in Holiday Classic

By Gregg Chappell

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Pirates traveled to Indian Springs High School for a four school dual meet on Wednesday, December 15. The Pirate Wrestlers defeated all three schools at the duals. They then headed to Las Vegas to compete in the huge Holiday Classic Wrestling Tournament held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Friday and Saturday.

The dual meet at Indian Springs started out well for the Pirates as the first line-up was against Spring Mountain. The Pirates dominated the dual by winning 13 of the 14 matches. Final score against Spring Mountain was 78 to 6.

The Moapa wrestlers then went head to head with Beaver Dam and once again the Pirates came out with a big win of 66 to 18.

Finally, Moapa faced the home team from Indian Springs. But the Pirates weren’t challenged much as they walked away with a big win of 66 to 18.

Wrestlers’ stats for the night were as follows: 103 pounds Zach Baldwin 1-0; 119 Braden Evans 1-1; 119 Jake Repp 1-0; 125 Irving Torres 3-0; 130 Dylan Smith 2-1; 135 Skylar Postma 2-1; 140 Jared Repp 2-1; 145 Justin Boren 2-1; 152 Trevor Durham 3-0; 160 Parker Chappell 2-0; 171 Jake Rebman 1-0; 189 Colton Millington 0-1; 215 Brandon Reeves 0-1; 285 Ray Bellevance 1-0. Some of the weight classes had one or two forfeit wins. In the 112 pound weight category all three schools were unable to generate a wrestler for Tony Burkey to wrestle against.

After an easy sweep of the duals the Pirates participated in a much more competitive tournament on Friday and Saturday at the Holiday Classic.

The Holiday Classic has grown in popularity and is the one of the biggest wrestling tournaments in southern Nevada. This year the roster consisted of 73 teams from Nevada, California, Oregon, and Utah and as far away as West Virginia.

The tournament took place on 12 mats and went continuously for two days. At the conclusion of the second day a total of 1800 matches had taken place and 700 wrestlers had battled hard to stay alive in the tournament. The format was a 64 man, double elimination tournament in each of the 14 weight classifications.

The competition was fierce and many of our Pirate wrestlers were eliminated by the end of the first day. Fortunately, any wrestlers who were eliminated from the competition after the first three rounds were able to compete in the Hard Luck Tournament on Saturday which allowed many wrestlers more valuable time on the mat.

At the end of the first day, the Pirates only had one wrestler left in the championship bracket. Parker Chappell had three wins no losses and he advanced to the quarter finals on Saturday morning. His first win Saturday morning advanced him to the semifinals.

It was here that his first defeat came at the hands of his opponent from Carlsbad California. Parker pinned his last opponent from West Virginia to medal in the tournament at 5th place.

After the first day, the team standings showed the Nevada teams struggling with only two in the top ten spots. West Virginia was in first place, and the other places were all taken by teams from California. At the end of the competition the top five teams were Parkersburg, West Virginia; La Quinta, California; Palo Verde, Nevada; Brawley, California; and Las Vegas High School, Nevada.

The Pirates’ next tournament is at Eldorado High School on December 28-29.