WP Tigers Growl At Home Meet

PRESCOTT - Waitsburg- Prescott fared well in its first home meet in the history of the WP combine Tuesday. WP wrestlers raised their hand in victory after nine of their 14 matches against foes from seven visiting schools.

Adolfo Armenta, Dal­ton LaRue, Tristan New­man, Brandon Aceves, James Thompkins, Trenton Kitsel­man, and Steven Grimes all recorded wins by fall. New­man tallied two pins on the night.

Gabe Escalante, wrestling at 120 pounds, was the only WP wrestler to go the dis­tance, which he did in both matches. Escalante appeared in control of his first match against White Swan's Gladys Palma, until Palma pulled a reversal in the second round. She never gave up control after that taking the match 11-7. Escalante countered his mistake in the first match by maintaining control over Pomeroy's Greg Florek in his second match. Escalante won 13-5. Escalante recorded a near fall that could have ended in a pin had the two not left the ring.

The quickest matches of the night belonged to LaRue, Kitselman, and Thompkins. Each pinned their opponent in under a minute.

The best match of the night for WP may have been its last. WP's Tristan New­man squared off for a second time against Colfax's Aaron Arneson in the 285 pound class. Up 4-0 in the second round and seemingly at an advantage, Newman faltered and Arneson reversed and took Newman down into a position that appeared to verge on a pin. But Newman rolled out of the hold and reversed back onto Arneson. Up 7-2 to start the third, Newman took down Arne­son and pinned him in 12 seconds.

"At the end, his head was down," Newman said, "and I used a move we call the ce­ment mixer. You just change you direction and go straight over the back of them, and 'T' out as we say and they can't get out of it."

"The kids wrestled hard against kids they've never seen before. I don't think anybody did poorly at all," said WP head coach Lanny Adams.

Adams was pleased with the crowd for the first ever WP home meet.

"We had a ton of people in the stands tonight," said Ad­ams. "We couldn't have done this meet without the Mat­birds people. We used one of their mats. They ran the scor­ers table, and Travis Newman did the announcing."

WP hits the mats again December 28 in Pomeroy.