| Tyson Herrick sizes up his opponent during his match on Friday. |
The Carbon High wrestling team came into their Jan. 24 match with high expectations as they have had good year thus far. They would not live up to the expectations losing to North Sanpete in what Coach Dave Smith called a “very disappointing performance.” North Sanpete ran away 47-13.
Carbon won four of the first seven matches in the dual but things fell apart after that. Tyson Herrick was defeated by a score of 10-3. He was down 10-0 and was mounting a comeback near the end of the match, but time just ran out on him. Tanner Herrick wrestling at 125 pounds, scored a two point decision to tie up the dual. And after Steven Scow and Preston Lodeserto won their matches Carbon had the lead.
Patrick Strey went down 5-0 in the next match. “He got put on his back early and just never got it back,” said coach Smith. Davey Cox gave Carbon its last win with a 10-0 decision.
According to Smith the only other close match was that of Niko Velasquez who led for most of his contest before he gave up a reversal with seconds left to go down 6-7.
“I was very discouraged with the way we wrestled as a team,” said Coach Smith. “We had several wrestlers just not show up. The match was expected to be close, but we just weren’t ready,” continued the Carbon High coach.
Smith and his assistants made a few changes for Friday nights contest against North Sevier. North Sevier is ranked 2nd in the state. Carbon again went down but wrestled valiantly losing by two, 34-32. The lead went back and forth with Carbon jumping out to a 32-10 lead only to give up pin-falls in the final four matches wrestled.
Region wrestling will be conducted Friday at 4:30 p.m. and will continue Saturday at 10 a.m. Carbon will enter the contest ranked 3rd with Tanner Herrick and Preston Holdaway ranked first in the region. According to Smith, Carbon expects to send between 12 and 15 wrestlers to the state tournament the following week.