Jan. 15, 2008: Tooele-Transcript Bulletin

Tooele in Top Third at Wrestling Tournament
by Mark Watson

Tooele County wrestlers made a respectable showing at the Tournament of Champions last weekend in Vernal. Tooele High scored 96.5 points at the meet to place 14th while Grantsville High scored 35 points to finish 29th. A total of 37 schools from Utah, Wyoming and Colorado participated in the event.

Delta finished first with 183 points followed by host Uintah High with 173 points and Roosevelt High, Colo. with 166.

Four varsity wrestlers from THS earned medals while one Grantsville grappler earned a medal. Wrestlers needed to finish in top eight to receive medals.

Tooele medal winners included Monte Schmaulhaus (152) second, Daniel Goode (140) fourth, Zeb Hansen (160) eighth and Isacc Brown (215) eighth. Grantsville’s medal winner was Seth Krieser (171) eighth.Also scoring points for the Cowboys were sophomore Austin Rowley (103), Ty Hamatake (189) and Ben Pixton (215).

Schmalhaus pinned his opponent in his first three matches and then won a fourth-straight match with a 4-3 decision over a Colorado wrestler to advance to the championship. In the finals he was edged 9-5 by a wrestler from Roosevelt High in Colorado.

Goode won three straight matches before losing to a Payson wrestler 6-4 in the semi-finals. Goode then came back to defeat a Rock Springs, Wyo. wrestler 6-1 in the consolation bracket. Goode dropped to fourth by the closest of margins losing to a wrestler from Colorado 11-9. Overall, Goode was 4-2 at the tourney.

Hansen started strong by pinning his first opponent, but then faced the No. 1 seed in the tournament and lost by a fall. After the second-round defeat, Hansen went on to pin his next two opponents and then win his fourth match of the tourney by decision. He dropped his final two matches to place eighth.

Brown pinned his first two opponents and then lost by a fall in the third round. In the consolation bracket he pinned a wrestler from Green River, Wyo and then lost by fall and a decision to place eighth.

Tooele’s junior varsity finished 4-1 in a dual tourney. Outstanding wrestlers for Tooele JV included Thomas Manning (5-0) with four falls and one decision; Travis Colvin (4-0) with with three falls and on decision; Mike Trujillo (3-0) with two falls and one decision; Zach Huntsman (4-2) with four falls.