AUBURN — If someone had told first-year Peninsula Seahawks head coach Mark Nickels that two of his wrestlers would advance to the finals prior to the start of the All-South Puget Sound League wrestling tournament, he would have taken it.

Casey Larson (145 pounds) and Randy Nimrick (132) both reached the championship round on Friday at Auburn High School, and they finished as runners-up in their respective weight divisions.
They were the only Seahawks to finish in the top eight individually.

“I have no problem with what happened in the finals,” Nickels said. “The kids wrestled well and did their best. I would have liked to have written the script a little differently, but we’ll go back to the mat room and keep working hard and come up with the answers.”

Nimrick was pinned in the second round of his title match against Tahoma’s Joey Palmer.

Palmer, who attended Rogers High School in Puyallup for the past three years, plans to wrestle at Oregon State University next year. He won the Class 4A 125-pound state championship last winter.

Nimrick scored a two-point reversal to tie the match at 2-2 late in the first round, but Palmer gained the upper hand early in the second round and registered the pin.

“He (Palmer) is a tough kid, and both of them are top-notch wrestlers,” Nickels said. “I’m not going to worry about how close Randy came to a guy, because his own record speaks for itself. He has already beaten some top-level kids at this tournament. He knows what he’s able to do on the mat, and he is still peaking.”

Larson, who dropped a 5-0 decision to Grant Steen of Graham-Kapowsin in championship round, dominated his first three opponents, each by pin.

Larson’s highlight came in the semifinals when he put away Rogers’ DJ Ronco in two minutes, 34 seconds.

“I never underestimate anybody,” Larson said about the match. “It definitely feels good. I pinned him with a Saturday night leg ride, which is two leg rides and a reverse half-nelson.”

Nimrick won a close decision over Eduard Yakimchuk of Auburn Riverside in the semifinals. Nimrick nearly pinned Yakimchuk as time expired in the second round.

“I wrestled smart, and I didn’t want to get caught at all,” Nimrick said. “I knew I just had to put my legs into it, and I knew I would pretty much win that match.”

Nickels said the tournament is the most formidable competition the Seahawks will face until the postseason begins.

“It was a real test for us to see where we were at,” he said. “We’ve got a core group of kids who I think can wrestle with just about anybody. It was an opportunity for us to wrestle against the best wrestlers around.”