RENO - Nobody enjoys losing. In the case of the Sierra Nevada Classic wrestling tournament, however, a defeat every now and then can be beneficial.
"I don't think it was a bad tournament for us," Carson High assistant coach Guy Rocha said Wednesday night during the medal round of the 29th annual Asics Sierra Nevada Classic. "I think, on some levels, we made some good progress. We're here to learn, and we did a lot of that today."
The Carson Senators also returned home with three medal winners - sophomore Travis Lamborn placed fourth in the 160-pound weight class, while junior Jonas Schenzel and sophomore Robbie Bozin placed eighth in their respective 189- and 119-pound divisions at the Reno Livestock Events Center.
Another Carson Country wrestler, Yerington junior Ryan Gilmore, advanced to the 215-pound championship round before he was pinned by Mike Hurst of Grace Davis (Modesto, Calif.). The loss was the first of the season for Gilmore (28-1) and came at the hands of Hurst, the California state 189-pound champion last season and now a nationally ranked 215-pounder.
"The fun thing about this tournament is, you can come here with a flawless record and very easily leave with a defeat," Yerington coach Rod Lemos said.
Yerington senior Steven Gutierrez also placed third at 145 pounds. Gutierrez, who is closing in on the school's record for most career pins, won his first four matches to reach the semifinals before he lost to Ben Cate of Burns (Ore.), who has been undefeated the last two seasons and has signed to wrestle at Oregon State.
"We travel all over Nevada, but really, we are pretty isolated, so it's great that they bring the Tournament of Champions and Sierra Nevada Classic here because it gives our kids a chance to see what the rest of the wrestling world is doing. It's a real eye opener."
The Reno TOC brought 85 high school wrestling teams from across the nation to Reno last week. The Sierra Nevada Classic, hosted by Reno High School and sponsored by Asics, attracted a 91-team field representing six states.
Carson finished 14th in the team standings with 103.5 points, while Yerington finished 23rd with 86 points. Burns won the team title with 198.5 points. Fallon was the top Northern Nevada finisher with 144 points, good for fifth-place.
On his way to the finals, the 6-foot-5 Gilmore pinned three straight opponents, scored a 4-2 win over No. 2 seeded Garrett Bloomer of Marshfield (Coos Bay, Ore.) and then took a 6-4 decision from Duncan St. Clair from Battle Ground, Wash.
"Those were two good wins. Ryan had to work hard because both those kids were real tough," Lemos said. "He would have liked to have won that last match (in the finals against Hurst). Ryan went out and did the best he could, he just stepped up to a whole new level."
Lamborn found a little consolation in his fourth-place finish, which ended with a loss by technical fall at the hands of Andrew Buck of Battle Ground, Wash.
"I would have been more happy if I'd finished third, but there's nothing I can do about that now except go back and train harder," Lamborn said. "I learned a lot of stuff today - stuff that I need to work on - now I want to take what I learned and build on that."
Lamborn won seven tournament matches, three against seeded opponents, including a 5-2 verdict against No. 4 seed Jeff Ure from Pine View, Utah. Ure placed fifth at Utah's 3A state tournament last season.
"He was flawless. It was an excellent, well managed match. He did all the right things," Rocha said of Lamborn.
"Travis isn't the biggest 160-pounder, he just out-techniques other people," Carson co-coach Tim McCarthy said. "And for a sophomore to place third in a weight class normally dominated by upper classmen, that says a lot."
Schenzel earned his eighth-place medal at 189 pounds even though he only weighed in at 172 pounds before the start of the tournament on Tuesday. He earned his medal shot with a pin in the consolation quarterfinals, followed by a 10-7 win over No. 9 seeded Matt Bowe of Bend, Ore.
"Jonas did a real good job in that match," McCarthy said of Schenzel's last win. "He was hungry and he took it up another notch."
Schenzel lost his seventh-place match to No. 2 seeded Derek Palmer from Dayton (Ore.), a semifinalist at Oregon's 2A/1A state tournament last season.
Bozin, who came in as a No. 6 seed, lost his seventh-place match to Ryan Edwards of Battle Ground. Bozin won his first two matches and then won three more times in the consolation bracket before he dropped a 4-2 decision to Steve Renard from Sprague, an Oregon 4A state tournament semifinalist last season.
"I went two-and-out last year, so I was happy about today," Bozin said. "This is a tough tournament. My goal was to make it to the second day; making it to the medal stand, that was a bonus."
Contact Dave Price at dprice@nevadaappeal.com or call 881-1220.