Cascade dominates district wrestling

Cougars win five weights, send 16 to state

Cascade captured the district wrestling tournament title at the event they hosted Friday and Saturday, easily outscoring Estacada. The Cougars compiled 414 points, with the Rangers a distant second with 275.5. The win avenged Cascade’s loss last year to Estacada in the district meet, and built on the Cougars 46-24 dual meet win against the Rangers a week ago, when Cascade broke Estacada’s seven year home meet winning streak.

Cascade captured five of fourteen weight classes, and added three seconds, though two were lost to team mates. The Cougars advanced both champion Robbie Federico, and runner up Dillon Davidson to the 160 pound finals, where Federico claimed the win with a pin at the mid point of the third period. In the 171 pound class, Junior Gates and decisioned Byron Anderson.

Combined with eight third place finishers, the Cougars qualified 16 wrestlers for the state tournament, to be held Thursday thru Saturday at Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

Coach Jason Lovell, who was named district wrestling coach of the year by a vote of Capital Conference coaches, reflected on taking a large contingent to the state tournament, noting “We’ll see, but we should do just fine at state if we compete. Our goal is to win, and it’s a definite possibility.” Lovell was referring to the concern shared by all the coaches in the tough Capital Conference, which Lovell termed “The toughest in the state.”  In several 4A districts, the number of competing teams is lower, and the number of strong teams is not as large either, which results in some schools qualifying a large number of wrestlers, affording them more opportunities to accumulate points, while the Capital Conference “Beats up on each other” according to Lovell.

Cascade opened the final round by capturing the 103 pound class, when Wade Humphrey claimed a pin over Garrett Heinetz of Estacada 18.9 seconds before the end of the match. Next, Zach Clark pinned Adam Hayner of Molalla in 31.6 seconds to claim the 112 pound title.

The Cougars’ David Dodge lost the 125 pound final to Cody Randall, of North Marion by a 17-2 margin. Randall’s win improved his season record to 34-1, and earned him outstanding wrestler of the meet honors in the lower weight classes. Lovell noted “David had a real tough draw, one of the best wrestlers in the state, not just the district.”

Former Cascade state champion, and multiple time NCAA All-American in the 1960’s, Jess Lewis, who was on hand to hand out the championship hardware, commented “It’s great to see Cascade continuing to have such a strong team. I know some of their grandfathers, never mind their dads, and the program is something to be proud of.”

Matt Collier rounded out Cascade’s championship winners at 135 pounds. Cascade’s third place qualifiers include Moses Keener (103), Dominique Chuhon (130), Nikoli Andreeff (135), Josh Dozler (140), Dan Stahlberg (145), Austin Kelly (152), Paul Federico (189), and Nick Granum (215).

Lovell commented “To have twelve wrestlers fighting for those third (and last) positions is tough.” Three of them faced team mates in intra squad matches that sent only one of them to state. Federico defeated best friend Anthony Noonkester in one of the best battles of the meet, which went to four overtimes, and left both young men emotionally spent.

Chuhon had to decision team mate Adam Dolan to qualify for state, and Stahlberg had to defeat Jack Biewend to claim his ticket to Portland. Brent Griffith, the lightest heavyweight (285 pound class) in the tournament, also scored fourth place points for Cascade.

Lovell summed up the successful weekend, where 23 of 27 Cascade wrestlers scored points, saying “I’m proud of everyone in the program; they all contributed. Because of some injuries, and rules that allow only two wrestlers per weight class, we had to leave several wrestlers that helped make our squad stronger off the team. This is their win too.”