Wrestlers hope to build on success at state

Greybull-Riverside saw six of its wrestlers reach the finals and six more place either third or fourth at last weekend’s Class 2A West Regional.  The tournament played out at dual sites, with the boys competing in Big Piney and the girls in Evanston.

The Hound Dogs’ only individual champions were 144-pounder Loomis Alexander and heavyweight Curtis Strohschein, but second-place finishers Gabby Dowling (135 pound weight class, girls division), Michael Bassett (138), Reece Whisenant (144) and Caiden Sorenson (157); third-place finisher Zack Kuntz (190) and fourth-place finishers Rihanna Gaytan (125, girls), Tawny Bertolini (140, girls), Bennett Sanford (132), Garrett Wiggins (150) and Nikoah Sorenson (165) helped themselves by earning seeds for this weekend’s State 2A Wrestling Championships in Casper.

G-R finished third in the boys division with 145 points, trailing regional champion Kemmerer with 171 and Thermopolis with 151.  The team was further down in the girls division, finishing in a tie for 13th with 51 points.

Girls division

Coaches Rob Nuttall and Nate Hetzel were in Evanston with the girls.  

G-R entered four and three placed, with Dowling leading the pack at 135.  The Greybull senior went 3-1, notching first-period pins in her first three matches before encountering Remington Aullman of Star Valley. Aullman walked away with the regional title, scoring a second-period pin.

“She’s solid, but we about had her in the first period,” said Nuttall. “They’ll be on opposite sides of the bracket at state so hopefully we see get to see her again.

“Gabby wrestled a solid tournament, though, all the way through the finals match.”

To get that rematch with Aullman, Dowling would have to go through the 2A East Champion, Abrianna Laird, a senior who is 38-7.

Bertolini and Gaytan turned it on when it mattered most, earning top-four finishes.

Gaytan went 3-2 in her first regional tournament.  Her outing began with back-to-back wins before she was derailed by a loss to Gracelynn Allen of Lyman. “She had to win a big one on the backside just to get in for third and fourth,” said Nuttall, referring to a 9-6, sudden-victory win over Vivian Smith of Kelly Walsh.  “In the third and fourth match, she ran into a girl who was the top-seeded wrestler going in.”

“For a first-year wrestler to not only make state, but get seeded in is a huge finish for her,” Nuttall said.

Bertolini, at 140, faced an even more daunting task. She lost early, falling to Alexis Thompson of Pinedale in the quarters, but then she got on a roll, winning three straight to qualify for the third-place match.

“When you’re looking at coming in on the backside of 32-man brackets, it’s a long way back when you lose in the quarters,” said Nuttall. “She just put her head down, went to work, stayed positive and did a nice job of doing the little things right.

“Last year, we didn’t have a seed going into state, but this year, we do, and that speaks to the great things she’s done and accomplished.”

Boys division

Coaches Mark Sanford and Brant Ogg were with the boys in Big Piney. Sanford said the third-place finish as a team may have been a better outcome than they expected, but was still lamenting a couple matches that went the wrong way and prevented G-R from moving into second.

Strohschein rolled through the heavyweight division, winning all three of his matches to improve to 38-3.  The most impressive, Sanford said, was his 4-0 win over Zef Zuniga of Big Piney. “We reversed him in the second period and turned him for a two-count in the third, but just couldn’t settle on him for the pin,” Sanford said.  “Curtis wrestled a good, smart match, not getting himself in trouble.”

Alexander and Whisenant found themselves in the same 144-pound weight class.  Roany Proffit of Kemmerer is the dominant force at 138; he’s 49-1 and will be looking to become a four-timer. Will Ward of Thermopolis rules the roost at 150; a senior, he’s 21-1.  So if they win out in Casper — and Whisenant has already beaten 2A East champ Braydnn Terry of Moorcroft — the Riverside standouts could square off in the final. “Both wrestled well and took care of business (at the regional),” said Sanford.  Alexander pinned Whisenant in the regional final to go 3-0.  Whisenant went 2-1. 

Sorensen’s biggest win of the weekend came in the semifinals, when he decisioned Clay Teichert of Cokeville, 9-6.  Because he’s been dealing with a bum ankle, Sorenson defaulted out of the final and will be a No. 2 seed at state.  Sanford said the 157-pound division is a tough one. “He has to take it one match at a time ... if he does that, he has a good shot of being a strong placer for us.”

Sanford went 2-2 at the regional and placed fourth at 126.  The matches he won were by pin.  The only setbacks were a loss to Zavier Clifford of Big Piney in the semis and Daxton Pope of Cokeville in the third-place match.  The latter was by 7-5 decision.  “The kids scored seven points against us and six were things we did to ourselves,” said Coach Sanford. “A fourth wasn’t bad, but a third would have put us in a better place going into state.”

Nikoah Sorenson went 2-2 en route to his fourth-place finish at 165, with losses to the eventual champion, Graison Kelley of Kemmerer, in the semis and Triffen Jolley of Rocky in the third-place match. “For a freshman coming in at 165, he did a really good job,” said Sanford, adding that he was the youngest grappler in the class.

Bassett strung together three straight wins, all of them by pin, to reach the 138-pound final.  In it, he met the aforementioned Proffit, losing by first-period pin. “Mikey’s a battler and I’m proud of him,” said Sanford. “He went right after (Proffit) and didn’t back down.”

Kuntz turned in a strong performance at 190, going 4-1 and losing only to Ryder Pope of Cokeville in the semis.  “Felt good about his matches,” said Sanford. “He did things I did not like in his first few, but he cleaned them up as the tourney went on.”

Wrestlers who competed at the regional tournament but did not place among the top four include MaKenna Schell, who went 0-2 in the girls 125-pound class; Braxdon Patterson, 1-2 at 132; Jesse Brown, 1-2 at 138; Carter Peasley, 0-2 at 150; Ben Mendenhall, 0-2 at 157; Corbyn Godfrey, 0-2 at 190, and Camden Schriner, 1-2 at 215.

While most of them are going on to Casper, their opening round matchups will be more difficult because they are unseeded.

State preview

Nuttall pegged Moorcroft as the team to beat in the 2A boys division.  “The door’s open” for the Hound Dogs, he said. “We wrestled close to our potential (at the regional), but there were some swing matches we didn’t get that I wish we would have.

“But we have an opportunity to go onto state and do something we haven’t accomplished.  We hadn’t finish in the top three at regional since 2020, so that’s big for these kids, to see all they accomplished as a result of their hard work.

“Now we want to go to Casper, bring home some individual titles and podium finishes, have a solid team finish and just keep building and building.”

G-R will look to improve on last year’s eighth-place finish in the boys division.