| A Carbon wrestler takes down an opponent from Emery High during Saturdays Carbon Duels meet. |
The first words out of Carbon wrestling Coach Dave Smith when one asks him about his team this year is that “they are a very young group of kids.”
But that young group, with only one senior on the squad took second place in their own tournament on Saturday, showing the world that they will be a force to be reckoned with, and that time may not be far away.
The meet was won by Duchesne High School, in a shortened version of the usually packed duels meet. Originally there was supposed to be about 10 teams show up for the meet, but only seven came to Price to compete.
Duchesne was the only team that Carbon lost to during the meet. In round one Carbon took out Logan 42 to 36. In the second round they battered Milford 74-0. In the third round they took out North Sanpete 72-6 and then against Monticello they won 45-30. Carbon also took Grand 61-23 and Emery 42-30.
In losing to Duchesne they ended up with 31 points to the Bald Eagles 36. That set up a tie breaker between the two schools (because Duchesne had also lost one round) but Carbon lost that and took second overall.
While Carbon did well individually, the two boys selected as most outstanding wrestlers for the meet were Wade Eldredge of Monticello and Jake Sawin of Logan.
It was the team spirit and effort that carried Carbon though.
Carbon took only one first place, with Jay Workman winning first in the 275 lb. category.
Carbon second place finishers included Patrick Strey at 135, Preston Lodeserto at 140, Michael Tryon at 145, Josh Critchlow at 171 and Adam Archer at 189.
Third place finishers for Carbon included Derrick Horrocks at 112, Tyson Herrick at 119, Tannner Herrick at 125, Kenny Davis at 130 and James McKendrick at 160.
The junior varsity team also did well as Steven Scow (130), Davey Cox (152), Aaron Steffanoff (189) and Alex Collins (152) all took first place.
Second place JV finishers included Jason Fredrickson (119), Justin Procarione (135), Colton Martinez (140) and Brad Jones (152).
Taking third place in the JV were Marcus Rowley (130), Matt Salas (145) and Michael Harmond (171).
With that competition under their belt Carbon will travel to Altamont on Wednesday and then will be back home on Saturday when the Hurricane Tigers come to town to grapple on the mats.