MVHS Wrestling Wins Tournament Championship

By DAVE BELCHER

The Progress

The Pirates traveled to Boulder City on Saturday, December 3 to compete in the annual Boulder City Duals Tournament. After a tough day of wrestling, the team came away with the tournament championship.

In the first round, the Pirates faced off against 4A Basic High School. Morris Wolfley, Tyson Houston, Max Bromley, William Anderson, Shandon Matheson, Chance Houston and Jared Evans all secured pins against their opponents to lead the Pirates to a hard-fought 45-34 victory over the Wolves.

Then the Pirates took on 4A Rancho High School in the 2nd round. Max Bromley, Ty Jensen, Shandon Matheson and Gavyn Frederick pinned their opponents on the way to another razor thin victory for the Pirates, 42-39.

Virgin Valley High School was the opponent in the 3rd round. Virgin Valley has had a tough team for many years and always has state contenders up and down their lineup.

Caleb Anderson received a forfeit at 120 lbs. Brody Redd set the tone early by pinning Virgin Valley’s Isaias Trujillo. Decker Lee of Virgin Valley tied the dual by pinning 1st year freshman Mark Nelson. Max Bromley got the Pirates back on the plus side after he pinned Blanthorn of VV.

But the Bulldogs had a lot of fight left. Gunner Cortez of VV evened things up again, pinning William Anderson of Moapa. Ruben Silveyra kept things going for the Bulldogs by pinning Ty Jensen of Moapa.

Then Chance Houston got the MVHS team back on track by pinning Connor Zarate. Jared Evans battled hard and kept the Pirates on the winning side earning a pin against Dominic Piazza.

Cutler Crandall, one of Virgin Valley’s best wrestlers, pinned Gavyn Frederick at 190 lbs. And Jacob Nelson evened things up for Virgin Valley by pinning Taysen Holmstead at 215 lbs.

The dual came down to forfeits. VV earned one at heavyweight and Moapa Valley picked up one at 106 lbs. and 113 lbs. for a final score of Moapa 48, Virgin Valley 36.

Having gone undefeated in pool wrestling, the Pirates earned the top seed in the championship dual where they took on Pahrump Valley.

The Pirates started out rough losing the first 5 matches and bringing the score to 24-0 Pahrump.
Then team captain Shandon Matheson shifted the momentum. He pinned his opponent in just 1:29 of the first period, and the Pirates took over from there. Chance Houston followed up with a pin of his own. Jared Evans earned another pin. And Frederick pinned his opponent in the first period tying the dual at 24 all.

But then Ty Hanks of Pahrump Valley pinned Taysen Holmstead and the Trojans received a forfeit at heavyweight to put the Pirates down by 12 with 3 matches left in the dual.

That is when the Pirate freshmen came through for the team. Morris Wolfley dominated his opponent to earn a 4-point major decision. Tyson Houston continued his hot streak pinning his opponent in just 1:34 of the first period. Finally, Caleb Anderson carried the team on his shoulders by scoring 16 points, winning the final match of the day, 16-2, and earning a 4-point major decision and a 2-point team victory over the Trojans (38-36).

“It was a great tournament with some tough competition,” said Head Coach Ryan Anderson. “We still have a long way to go this season and there is lots of room for improvement, but they wrestled well last weekend and showed they have what it takes to do some great things as a team this season.”

Earlier in the week, the Pirates team traveled to Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 29 for its first official competition of the season. They took on Eldorado and Sunrise Mountain in the meet.

It was a good first showing for the team which beat Sunrise Mountain 66-9 and El Dorado 65-12.
Morris Wolfley, Caleb Anderson, Tyson Houston, Brody Redd, Max Bromley, Shandon Matheson, Jared Evans and Gavyn Frederick all picked up at least one pin on the night.