Wrestlers Grapple In Bulldog Growler

By BOB SNELL

The Progress

Virgin Valley High School hosted the Bulldog Growler wrestling tournament on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 17-18 in Mesquite. The tournament brought wrestlers from all over the region to go head to head, compete and gain experience.

Among the many teams in attendance was the Moapa Valley High School Pirate Wrestling team.
Spring Valley of Las Vegas captured the team title at the tournament.
The VVHS team had five wrestlers who placed at the tournament.

Martin Jordan, who was reinstated from COVID-19 protocol on the opening day of the tournament, captured the first-place medal at 160 pounds.

“Martin worked out on his own during his quarantine and it showed,” VVHS head coach Skyler Woods said. “He always works hard.”

Cutler Crandall placed second at 170 pounds for the Bulldogs. The Dawgs also got third-place finishes from Gavin Baird at 126 and Dominic Piazza at 195. Ruben Silveyra finished fourth at 135.
“I thought the tournament went pretty well,” Woods said. “Overall, I thought we wrestled a lot better on Saturday than we did on Friday.”

One of the two teams the Bulldogs wrestled on Friday in the dual portion of the tournament was Spring Valley.
“We didn’t keep score but taking away the weight classes we had to vacate, it was a fairly even match,” Woods said.

The Pirate team placed three wrestlers on the winners podium in their divisions.
MVHS sophomore Shandon Matheson took first place in the 152 lb. weight class.
Gavyn Frederick, a freshman, wrestled to 2nd place in the 182 lb weight class.
Clay Whipple, a junior, took 4th place at 195 lbs.

MVHS Head Coach Ryan Anderson also pointed out that the Pirate Youth Wrestling program entered no less than 53 wrestlers into the youth division of the Growler. The Pirates took 2nd place out of 20 youth teams.

“That is pretty good considered it was the first tournament for over half of them,” Anderson said of the youngsters.

In the juniors, Brody Redd took 1st place in his weight pool in the premier division. Tyson Houston took 2nd in his division.

“It was a great learning experience for both high school and youth wrestlers,” Anderson said of the tournament.

The Pirate team is on winter break now. They will return to competition on Jan. 4 by hosting a dual involving Pahranagatt Valley, Lincoln County and Virgin Valley High School. The Pirates will then compete in a tournament at Centennial High School on Jan. 7-8

Virgin Valley will follow the Pirate dual up on Jan. 5 with a meet at Valley High School in Las Vegas along with Pahrump Valley and Sunrise Mountain of Las Vegas.

“We’re starting to get some kids healthy,” Woods said. “We had some kids who weren’t cleared until Thursday and Friday. It’ll be nice to get everyone back. Hopefully, we’ll have our full complement of wrestlers when we come back in January.”