Dec. 2, 2007: Deseret Morning News

Millard, Delta Go Unbeaten
by Brian E. Preece

FILLMORE — With 12 schools and ten dual meets over two days, quite a bit happened at the Millard Iron Man Tournament. But perhaps the biggest story was what didn't happen — Millard County rivals Delta and host Millard failed to take the mat against each other.

When the dust settled Millard and Delta were 10-0 in the competition with the host Eagles deemed the winner via a tiebreaker. In cases of identical records, the school that scored the most points in all their duals was declared the team champion and Millard garnered 510 points to Delta's 466. All teams in the competition had one school they would not face but Delta and Millard choosing not to wrestle each other was not the choice of the coaches but was a decision that came down from district administrators.

Instances of recent poor fan behavior, not with wrestling but in other sports, has led to a moratorium from the schools meeting in any athletic competition. This has happened before in the Millard School District but for the past several years the two schools had competed against each other in a dual meet, if not in this specific tournament, somewhere else in the course of the season.

Even as Delta went home with the second place trophy, Delta coach Josh Wright was happy with his team's performance and the undefeated record the Rabbits compiled over the two days of intense competition with some of the best wrestling schools in Utah.

"I'm happy," related Wright. "We have a young team with only three seniors. That's what excites me the most. Last year we came here with a bunch of seniors and finished 8-2. I'm proud of our kids. We beat some good teams like Uintah and North Sanpete."

Millard Coach Blake Turner was equally pleased with his team's efforts. "To tell you the truth, we've had a tough time getting going after football. The kids were a bit down (after losing the state title). I gave the football players a week off and then we had the hydration tests so after all that, to do as well as we did, I'm pleased."

North Sanpete finished third with an 8-2 record. The Hawks lost to Millard 38-30 and Delta 34-28 in extremely tight and exciting dual meets.

Finishing in a surprising fourth finish was Cedar City with a 6-4 overall record which was the overall mark of fifth place Payson and sixth place Riverton, Wyoming.

Uintah, which actually gave Millard's its closest dual losing 37-33 finished with a 5-5 record. Rounding out the top twelve were Clearfield (4-6) in eighth, Canyon View (3-7) in ninth, Mountain View (2-8) in tenth, while Pleasant Grove (0-10) and Bear River (0-10) failed to win the dual but Pleasant Grove scored more points in its matches and claimed eleventh place.

Several wrestlers did make the claim of going 10-0 in the Iron Man. Delta and Uintah led the way with three wrestlers. For Delta Chase Tolbert (103 pounds), Derek Peterson (125) and Kipp Holman (189) finished the weekend unblemished while the Utes had Colby Christensen (112), Creedon Merkeley (130) and Justin Curtice (160) go undefeated.

The champions Millard had Mason Stott (135) and Sergio Pedroza (285) finish with perfect records. Other 10-0 records were earned by Mountain View's Jake Frederickson (119) and Clay Frost (145), Payson's Brock Brown (119) and Riverton Wyoming's Derek Miller (171).