TUMWATER – Tumwater drained the suspense from the team score competition before the finals even got started.
The Thunderbirds locked up the title of the Pat Alexander Invite by placing 10 wrestlers in nine weight classes in the finals Saturday.
Six T-Birds emerged as champions as host Tumwater won the annual 10-team event by a healthy margin over second-place Sumner.
If the team title was in no doubt, at least a couple of the championship matches offered plenty of drama.
At 113 pounds, Tumwater’s Austin Chase and Sumner’s Travis Filleau were locked in a 4-4 tie for all but 17 seconds of the third and final round. At that point, Filleau managed a one-point escape to edge ahead, but with one second remaining in the match, Chase earned a takedown, good for two points and a 6-5 win.
In the 182-pound final, Tumwater’s Mykel Hartman was trailing 8-3 in the third round to Brandon Nielsen of Foster, but turned the tables with a pin with 40 seconds remaining in the match.
“He never stopped wrestling,” Tumwater coach Tony Prentice said of Hartman. “That’s what I like.”
Tumwater compiled 255 points in the tournament, followed by Sumner with 146.5, Black Hills 131, Camas 107, North Thurston 79.5, Spanaway Lake 75, Foster 42, Chehalis 20 and Cleveland 16.
At 126 pounds, Tumwater’s James Nolan wasted little time pinning Nathan Cornwall of Spanaway Lake 50 seconds into the first round. Brother Cameron Nolan at 132 also won by fall, pinning T-Birds teammate Tanner Page a second before the end of the second round.
“Cameron is tougher than nails,” Prentice said, and went on to praise the freshman Page, who was wrestling as a non-scorer.
Tumwater’s Tyler Prentice, who was named the tournament’s outstanding wrestler by a vote of the coaches, won all of his day’s matches at 170 pounds by fall, taking out Vince Huber of Camas in the final in 1:33 of the first round.
Black Hills claimed two individual titles, and in both cases the Wolves’ finals opponent was from rival Tumwater. At 120 pounds, Logan Gillihan defeated Tumwater’s Minh Doelman with a second-round pin, and at 285 pounds, Cody Kirsch edged Nathan Parsons, 3-2.
North Thurston earned two individual titles in the upper weight classes. In the 195-pound final, Rams sophomore Jake Grantham pinned Raul Veliz of Spanaway Lake in the first round. At 220, Caleb Richards made short work of Aaron Meade of Black Hills with a pin 39 seconds into the first round.
Prentice said his team lacked its usual assertiveness in losing a squeaker dual match to Centralia last week, but the T-Birds came out wrestling hard on Saturday.
“We were the aggressors on the mat today,” Prentice said.
The Thunderbirds will be in the multi-state 32-team field at the Pacific Coast Championships Dec. 29- 30 at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, Wash.
