Jan. 12, 2005: Vernal Express

Wrestlers Win Green River Meet

In preparation for the Tournament of Champions and a Delta dual meet this week, Uintah wrestlers won two meets and are ranked 30th in the nation.

Wednesday, four Uintah wrestlers who qualified attended the All-Star Tournament at Utah Valley Community College.

Phillip Keddy and Levi Mele won in their weight class. Czyz Woody and Jared McCurdy also were invited to participate in the All-Star Tournament from Uintah. In the tournament, the team composed of 1A, 2A and 3A wrestlers soundly defeated the 4A and 5A team.

Thursday, the day after the All-Star Tournament, Uintah wrestled Park City. The four who wrestled in the All-Star Tournament sat out because of state limitation on the number of events, so Coach Greg Stensgard called on some junior varsity wrestlers to fill in for the four wrestlers who couldn’t participate.

The Utes also had to forfeit two weight classes, but they still were able to pull off a 66 -18 defeat of Park City. Twelve of the Park City points were due to Uintah’s forfeitures.

“They are a young team in a growing program,” Stensgard said about Park City.

Friday and Saturday, 15 of the best wrestling teams in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado participated in the Green River, Wyo. dual meet. Uintah won the dual 7 - 0 by defeating Cheyenne Central 64-18 with 10 pins, Riverton, Wyo. 65-16 with 9 pins and Mountain Crest 51-15 in the pool portion of the meet.

In the bracketed portion of the meet, Uintah defeated Rock Springs, 64-15 in the first round; Standley Lake, 64-15 in the quarter final, and Star Valley High School from Afton, Wyo, 46-21 in the semifinals. In the final, Uintah faced off against Mountain Crest.

“They mixed up their line up a little so they scored more points, but we still defeated them with our same lineup,” Stensgard said.

The Utes won Mountain Crest 44-20 in the finals.

“Our whole team wrestled extremely well,” said Stensgard. “This was our first showing since the holiday break. We made mistakes, but we were able to correct them.”

Phillip Keddy and Levi Mele were Most Valuable Wrestlers at the dual in the upper and lower weights. Six Uintah wrestlers were undefeated at the dual: Ryan Young, Levi Mele, Eric Sharp, Jared Ruppe, Phillip Keddy and Jarod McCurdy.

Wrestlers which have shown improvement are

• Jared Ruppe, at 160 pounds continues to improve and is becoming a constant winner.

• Eric Sharp was undefeated at Green River and is having quite a season.

• Ryan Young is having a sensational season. He defeated the number three wrestler in Colorado.

• Chance Caldwell went 6-1 and is living up to his potential.

• Shawn Gurr moved up from 119 to 130 and was 3-4. He did what was best for the team by moving up to 130.

This Thursday the Utes will wrestle Delta at Western Park. Junior varsity will begin at 5:30 and varsity will begin at 7 p.m.

The Tournament of Champions will begin Friday at 11 a.m. at Western Park. The finals will be Saturday at 5:30 p.m..