Jan. 16, 2005: Deseret Morning News

Orem Goes Unbeaten During 4A Duals Wrestling Matches
By Michael Black

ROY — When the 4A Duals played out, there was something noticeably missing: many of the top wrestling teams from the classification.

"I kind of wish we had some more teams," said Roy High's wrestling coach and event host, Roger Horne. "This year we had some scheduling conflicts, but in the future we want this to become a little more prestigious and become a true dual championship for all of the classification."

For the 12 teams that did attend, what they saw were great facilities, outstanding competition and a team of wrestlers from Orem that really came together to perform at a top level.

The Orem Tigers were a perfect 6-0 in the duals format. The meet consists of five or six different team duals that feature a round-robin format for seeding on Friday, and a bracketed championship format that took place Saturday.

Orem rolled through the first day, claiming the No. 1 seed. The Tigers then breezed through their bracket and three matches on Saturday, defeating Roy 69-9, Mountain View 55-12 and finishing off Lone Peak 40-18 in the finals.

"We've been working really, really hard lately. Sometimes you wonder if you are working them (wrestlers) too hard, but we always try to show them that we love them and care about them, and this is the payoff," said Orem coach Ed Jarvis.

The Tigers blew away the team competition thanks to some great individual efforts. Orem had seven wrestlers who went through the meet undefeated. Levi Lewis, AJ Pope, Paul Judd, Clint Pyne, Ryan Freeman, Mario Tolayo and Matt McCoy — who was also named the outstanding wrestler in the lower (130) weight divisions — all went through the competition without a loss.

"I think that we are getting better every week and every match," said the undefeated Lewis after winning in the finals with a fall. "I expected us to wrestle great, and I had a good feeling coming in."

According to Jarvis, one of the biggest reasons for his team's success was going through the meet as one unit.

"I really like the dual format because you can take an individual sport and really preach a team concept. We rallied around each other and gave our support to one another and that is why we could go undefeated through a meet like this," he concluded.

Besides Orem's team success, several other individual wrestlers enjoyed a great meet. Greg Schroeder of Murray went undefeated at the 152-pound class and was named the outstanding wrestler of the upper weights.

Cameron George of Bountiful continued his dominance at the 135-pound division. He ran his record to a perfect 27-0, and in what has become his trademark, pinned his opponent in 5-of-6 matches.

"I like to get the actual pin," said George. "You need every point, especially in a dual, so I like to go for the full six points. Even the five for a technical fall sometimes isn't enough. We lost a match to Springville by only one point, so every single point counts."

Even with the top-ranked teams missing, the event gave the coaches an idea of where their team is for the upcoming region and state meets. The teams finished: Orem, Lone Peak, Provo, Mountain View, Bountiful, Cyprus, Murray, Roy, Springville, Renegade, Bonneville and Timpview.