PIRATE WRESTLING COMPETES IN FIRST DAY OF BIG BEAR TOURNEY

The Crookston Pirate Wrestling team is competing in the 39-team two-day Big Bear tournament in Cass Lake and the only wrestler advancing to Saturday will be Zach Brown at 113 pounds. Crookston is in 27th place out of 39 teams with Detroit Lakes leading after the first day.  Brown went 3-0 on the day and will wrestle in the semi-finals Saturday morning.   There were eight other Pirates that competed in the tournament and several of the Pirates had four matches on the day.  The breakdown of the Pirate matches and results are listed below –

Zach Brown, at 113 pounds, won all three of his matches on the first day of the tournament.  He won his first match by a tech fall in the third period.  In his second round match, Zach won by a pin 75 seconds into the match and in his semi-final match he had a dominant performance on his way to 9-3 victory to advance to the semi-finals on Saturday.  “Zach is a very good wrestler, especially when he is at 113 pounds and he has a lot of good competition at his weight, but he took care of business today and I thought he looked very solid.  He was dominant on his feet and he rode well and picked up some near-fall points and extended his lead,” said Pirate Coach We Hanson. “He is a leader in our team and for him to go out and build a big lead and get the team some bonus points in his first match was big.  In the quarterfinals, he had a huge first period and got a takedown and went into the second period with a 2-0 lead.  He did a lot of nice things in the match and looked good today.”

Pirates eliminated –
Ethan Bowman at 106 pounds, won his first match by a pin, lost his second match by a pin and wrestled well in a 10-4 loss in his third match and was eliminated.
Nolan Dans went 1-2 on the day and was eliminated at 120 pounds.  He had a nice pin in his second match of the day and was eliminated with a loss in his third match.
Braxton Volker, at 126 pounds, had a busy day with four matches.  He lost a hard-fought 7-6 decision in his first match but bounced back to win the next two matches by pin.  In his fourth match of the day, Braxton wrestled well but came up short in a 4-0 loss and was eliminated.
Cameron Weiland won his first-round match by a pin in the first period, lost his second match by decision and lost a hard-fought 12-10 decision in his third match and was eliminated at 132 pounds.  Cameron tied his last match at 10-10 with about 30 seconds left, but his opponent had a takedown late for the victory.
Hunter Knutson lost both his matches by pin at 138 pounds in his first trip to the Big Bear tournament.  Hunter will wrestle in the Little Bear tournament on Saturday where the kids that lost their first two matches compete and get some more matches.
Ethan Boll had four matches and went 2-2 on the day at 152 pounds.  He won his first match by decision, lost his second round match by pin.  He bounced back to win his third match by pin and lost a heart-breaker 6-5 in his fourth match.  Ethan trailed 6-4 late in the third period and it looked like he might have had a two-point takedown, but he was only awarded a point on the 50/50 call and lost 6-5.
Cade Coauette lost both of his matches by pin at 160 pounds in his first trip to Big Bear.  Cade will wrestle in the Little Bear tournament on Saturday where the kids that lost their first two matches compete and get some more matches.
Damian Hodgson, at 182 pounds, lost his first match of the day by decision before winning his second match by pin in the first period.  In his third match, Damian was leading 7-2 and was close to a pin in the second period, but he ran out of time and 31 seconds into the third period he lost by a pin and was eliminated.

“It is a very tough tournament and you try to not think about the losses.  It is about winning and learning and take something away from every match, keep improving and getting better,” said Coach Hanson. “We had some tough draws, had a couple leads that slipped and we had some matches where we came back too, so it goes both ways and we had some great effort from the guys today.”
The Pirates will have Zach Brown wrestling in the semi-finals on Saturday with the wrestling starting at 11:00 a.m.

Cameron Weiland tries for a takedown   Nolan Dans at the start of his third match

TEAM STANDINGS (Top 10 and area teams)
1. Detroit Lakes 124
2. Hutchinson 105
3. Thief River Falls 89
4. Minnewaska Area 84
5. Badger-GB-MR 78
6. Pierz 74
7. Long-Browerville 72.5
8. Bertha-Hewitt-Verndale 71
9. Hibbing 68
10. Frazee 65.5
12. Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton 59.5
16. Blackduck-Cass Lake-Bena 55
17. United North Central Warriors 53.5
18. Roseau 51
22. Park Rapids 45
25. Barnesville 41
27. CROOKSTON 38.5
31. Fosston-Bagley 33
35. Mahnomen-Waubun 25
39. Fertile-Beltrami 9

Damian Hodgson close to a pin in his third match of the day