Trojans return to the mat and take care of business

The Pahrump Valley wrestling team returned to action Wednesday night from their holiday break to participate in a four-team meet that took place at Valley High School.

The four teams that participated in the wrestling meet were the Pahrump Valley Trojans, the Virgin Valley Bulldogs, the Valley Vikings and the Sunrise Mountain Miners.

Wrestling head coach Craig Rieger mentioned that the matchup with Virgin Valley was very important because the two schools have a 25-year rivalry in wrestling.

The Trojans finished with a perfect 3-0 record in the meet, including a 63-18 victory over the rival Bulldogs.

“We were really excited about that,” Rieger said of his team’s win over Virgin Valley. “Virgin Valley has a great program. The boys wrestled aggressive and got after it.”

The Trojans’ largest victory came over the Miners by a score of 78-0. Coach Rieger did mention that a lot of the wins were by way of forfeit due to Sunrise Mountain only having three available wrestlers.

In the final matchup, the Trojans went up against the Vikings. Pahrump Valley came away with a 78-6 victory.

“They were a young team,” Rieger said of Valley’s team. “Our boys were wrestling pretty aggressively and they’re tough.”

The Trojans’ three seniors, Chris Vega, Coby Tillery and Henry Amaya, all finished the event with perfect 3-0 records.

Vega wrestles in the 126-pound division, Tillery wrestles in the 145-pound division and Amaya wrestles in the 152-pound division.

Early this week, Tillery committed to Cleary University in Howell, Michigan to continue his wrestling career following high school.

The Trojans also had sophomores Gunner Cortez of the 132-pound division and Brennan Benedict of the 138-pound division finish the night with a 3-0 record.

“We wrestled a lot in November and December,” Rieger said. “Over Christmas break there really wasn’t anything going on except practice. That varsity group, they came in and worked hard. A wrestling practice at Pahrump Valley High School is a big grind. It was a good night, we were really excited. The payoff is what happened tonight.”

The Trojans are now 5-0 in conference play and sitting near the top with Boulder City.

Pahrump Valley’s next meet will be at the Spring Creek Kiwanis Invitational being held at Spring Creek High School on Jan. 14 and 15.