Six wrestlers place at Ron Thon

The Bobcat wrestlers had six placers at the annual Ron Thon Memorial tournament in Riverton last Friday and Saturday, which brings most schools from Wyoming together. This year there were some teams not present due to weather, however, this is still the toughest tournament that the Bobcats attend during the year.

 On the Varsity side Roedy Farrell, at 160 lbs. came home with a second place finish. "Roedy had a good tournament against some of his toughest competition. He pinned his first three opponents in dominating fashion. In the Semi-Final match he controlled a tough Evanston wrestlers to advance to the finals. The finals brought a rematch of Roedy's only loss of the season in Sheridan's Dane Steel. Steel shut down Farrell at most every point during the match and ended up besting Roedy with a 5-1 victory," said coach Travis McDermott.

 At 126 lbs., Will Ward had a great tournament after losing his first match to Green River's Mele in a 12-6 battle. "Will had to then win three more matches on Friday to stay in the tournament. He had victories over Vasquez of Kelly Walsh with a high flying move that impressed everyone in attendance. He then beat Swain of Worland who had beat Ward handily earlier this year. He then had to beat 3A and 3rd ranked wrestler Madole of Pinedale in a barn burner which Ward came up with last second points to advance," said coach McDermott.

Saturday Ward had to beat another 3A ranked opponent in Timmons of Powell in order to place. Again his persistence paid off with a fall. In the Consolation semi-final match he faced Mele again of Green River and lost another hard fought match. In the 5th/6th place match, Will lost to 2nd ranked Wilson of Evanston in a close 5-2 match.

Coach McDermott said, "Will really had an impressive tournament in that losing the first match and coming all the way back is almost impossible but he did it and had fun doing it."

 For the Lady Bobcats, Kaitlin Barral broke through with her first two wins of her career and ended up placing second. She dominated two Star Valley wrestlers in a row on her way to the championship. The championship featured a rematch from the previous week with Pinedale's Dexter.

"While Kaitlin was aggressive right off the whistle, Dexter's strength put her over the top in the championship," said coach McDermott.

Alix Sorensen ended the weekend with a sixth place. "She wrestled well at times but I know she was disappointed with her finish," said coach McDermott.

He added, "Tera Kraushaar also competed well and tried some new things during the tournament which will help her in the coming weeks."

 The JV team had two placers with Sam Skelton coming in third and Colter Price getting a fifth place.

 As a team, the Bobcats ended up 18th of 36 teams and 3rd best 2A team. "With four weeks remaining in the season we will now be preparing for our culminating events with less competition and more training," said coach McDermott.

This week, the wrestlers compete in Powell on Tuesday and Worland on Thursday for duals. Saturday they will be at the Greybull invitational.