Friday Harbor faced an uphill battle even before the first wrestler hit the mat.
But the Wolverines’ Maverick Blake, Michael Davis and Jordyn Taylor gave the home crowd plenty to cheer and a lesson or two for Darrington to ponder as the two Northwest 1A/2B rivals squared off Thursday in Hall Gym.
Lacking wrestlers to compete in three lower-weight categories, Friday Harbor spotted the Loggers six points and trailed 18-12 before sophomore Lindsey Banry, who wrestled seven pounds above her 112-pound weight division, took on Andrew Forrest in the first of eight contested matches.
Though Banry held her own, Forrest (119) claimed the hard-fought bout in a 10-1 decision and added four more points to the Loggers’ lead.
Darrington, which gave up 12 points by forfeiting two matches, claimed victories either by pin or decision in five of eight matches in posting a 51-28 team victory. However, Blake, a sophomore, Davis, a freshman, and Taylor, a senior, tattooed the Loggers with several stinging defeats before they left town.
“It’s tough to make it up when you give up that many points to forfeits,” Head Coach Neil MacDiarmid said. “When we’re in this range (51-28), it means we’re winning about as many as we’re losing, but I think there were a few more points out there that we could’ve had.”
In back-to-back matches, Blake and Davis pinned their opponents and added a combined 12 points to the Friday Harbor team total. Blake (140) pinned Kris Stumpf at the 6:40 mark of their match and Davis, with only 2:19 elapsed, took Kyle Regelbrugge to the mat for a pin in a match up between 145-pounders.
The Loggers reclaimed momentum in the match as Kolton Palmer pinned Friday Harbor’s Conner Johns (152) at the 1:13 mark. Justin James (160) took Darrington’s Rich Groh the distance before dropping a closely-contested battle by a score of 6-3. Friday Harbor freshman Dylan Forth was pinned by Cody Bryson in the face-off between 135-pounders.
Taylor (171) added another four points to the team total by dominating Darrington’s Matt Groh in a 17-4 decision. The Loggers claimed the battle of heavyweights as Moe Hyde (285) pinned the Wolverines’ Willie Dunn at the 2:59 mark.
Next: The Wolverines were on the road Tuesday at La Conner. They host Nooksack Valley and Meridian on Thursday, 4:30 p.m., in Hall Gym.
The Wolverines are on the road Saturday at the Meridian Invitational, which begins at 9 a.m.
