Fallon squeaks past Douglas in final wrestling dual match

Two programs rich in tradition and uncharacteristically low on numbers went head-to-head Wednesday night in the final Sierra League dual match of the year.

On a night that had half of the bouts decided by forfeit, It came down to final matchup of the night to decide the difference between the Douglas and Fallon wrestling teams in Minden.

Even then, the final score had to be settled with the second tiebreaker as Fallon squeaked out a 46-45 win over the Tigers.

Fallon's Dalton Johnson held on for a 10-9 win in a back-and-forth match against Douglas' Kyle Mathews in the 160-pound bout to boost the Greenwave into a 45-45 tie, setting up the tiebreaker process.

"They go for the penalty points first and we were still even after that," Douglas head coach Nick Shine said. "After that it came down to head-to-head and they had the advantage there. Just barely missed this one."

Just barely is right.

With Douglas leading the overall score 45-42, Johnson and Mathews traded the lead six times.

Mathews took a 9-8 lead with a little over a minute left in the third period on an escape.

Johnson came back with a reversal with just 28 second left to retake the lead for good and held on from there.

That the match even ended so close was a credit to Douglas senior Cody Spates, who moved up from the 140-pound class to take on Fallon's Charlie Heck in the 145-pound bout with the Tigers leading 39-36.

Spates built an 11-3 lead over three periods before pinning Heck with 22 seconds left.

"Cody showed up to wrestle, he had a great match," Shine said. "Charlie Heck is a great wrestler. If Cody doesn't pin him, the team match wouldn't have even been that close."

The pin set the score at 45-36, but Fallon closed it right back down after Zerek Sanchez took a forfeit win in the 152-pound class.

For Fallon, Chandler Knight won an 8-2 decision over Douglas' Daniel Lundergreen in the 140-pound match, Anthony Reibsamen took a 4-0 decision over Austin Martin in the 135-pound match and Colin Merkley pinned Wes Peterson in 2:36 in the 119-pound class. Hector Menia also had a forfeit win for the Greenwave.

For Douglas, Michael Sepulveda took a 7-4 decision over Franky de Braga at 130 pounds and Dillon Spates pinned Tyler Cole in 3:48 in the 125-pound match. Patrick Miller (215) and Zach Falanga (189) each had forfeit wins for the Tigers.

Both teams forfeited the 275, 171 and 103 classes.