Trojans sending seven wrestlers to state tournament

The Trojans will seven wrestlers to the Class 3A state championships in Reno starting on Friday.

After a tough year of wrestling for this young team that started the year with two seniors and finished with none, Trojans wrestling coach Craig Rieger thought it was a great ending.

“I was surprised to get seven,” he said. “If you had said seven before the meet, I would have said whoa, that’s a big number. I just didn’t expect that and I was pleasantly pleased.”

Seven was a big jump compared to last year’s one wrestler who qualified.

As it turned out, the two-day 3A Southern Region wrestling tournament at Western High in Las Vegas was full of surprises for the veteran coach.

The Trojans had a pleasant surprise when two of their 195-pound wrestlers, junior Jeremy Albertson and teammate junior Cole Walker faced off for third place. Walker was taken to the regional as an extra. The team sent four extras this year.

“We told the two to go wrestle hard,” Rieger said. “Cole just winning two matches on Saturday to get to that point was something. He did a great job.”

The two know each other well because in practice they are wrestling partners.

Albertson, with eight wins and two losses, won his third-place match with Walker (3-2) by fall in 3:18 and was surprised to go up against his teammate.

“I didn’t anticipate this last match against Cole,” Albertson said. “But toward the end, we kind of knew if we both won our matches then we would be wrestling each other. It was kind of surprising, but it was still a match and we had to wrestle to get the best seating for state.”

Walker added, “It was cool to go in as a secondary and it is pretty rare to have a secondary go in and to qualify for state.”

“I am going to do the same thing I have done all year long to prepare. I am not going to do anything different now.”

For the coach, the biggest surprise of the tourney was sophomore wrestler Isaak Cruz, 120 pounds (3-3).

“It was a surprise because he was ineligible part of the season and here he is,” the coach said. “He beat out Dylan Oliverius (who wrestled there most of the year) for the varsity spot. I am just saying even the matches he lost, he wrestled like an all-American, Ty Smith and wrestled hard. Even his third-place match, he lost a tough Desert Pines match where he lost a close one. He was the kid I was impressed with the most.”

No one was as surprised as Cruz.

“I didn’t even think I would make it to state this year,” he said. “I was thinking going into the match that I’ve got to win this. I will prepare for state by working as hard as I can. I will do everything the coach tells me to do.”

Finally, Kyler Adams also surprised his coach.

“This kid was also ineligible part of the year and he came down in weight and wrestled a tough kid and he qualified.”

Adams said he needs to get over his cold before state.

“I was thinking I have to go all out, be aggressive and finish 100 percent and I had to make sure I got the win,” Adams said. “I need to get healthy for state because I have been wrestling sick. My body is tired. I will do my best.”

Dustin Rily, 152 pounds (5 -1), lost to Jimmy Dunagan of Boulder City (7-0) in the first-place match by decision, 11-7.

Grossell, 132 (8-1), won the third-place match against Calvin Agabin of Cheyenne by fall in 0:53. Grossell felt good about his efforts.

“I went in there knowing that third place was on the line and I wanted the better seating for state,” he said. “I took him down and I just threw everything I had into it. I ended up pinning him.”

Cruz, 120, lost his third-place match to Alexander Partrana of Desert Pines by decision, 10-4, but will go to state as the fourth-place seed.

Adams 126 (2-2), won his fifth-place match over Sean Awa-Moppert of Desert Pines 1-7 by fall in 34 seconds.

Junior David Diaz (6-3), who had just dropped to 145 pounds for regionals, won his fifth-place match over Hayden Redd of Moapa Valley. Diaz said he was hoping for a higher seed but was satisfied with the win.

“I dropped down from 190 at the beginning of the season to 145 for regionals,” he said. “I am not trying to sound too confident but I thought I was going to do better. I lost to Del Sol and then to Western, two good wrestlers. Going into the last match I knew what I had to do. I knew Moapa was a good team and I knew I had to wrestle with more heart.”

The Trojans’ 138-pound sophomore wrestler, Tristan Maughan, was disqualified. Rieger believed that the team could have sent eight wrestlers, if not for this misfortune.

The coach said to get his wrestlers ready for the big two-day state tourney he will assess how they are feeling on Monday and go from there.

“We will drill some of the wrestling techniques,” he said. “It will be how we approached it last week, short and intense.”

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com