Fallon's Sam Goings, top, placed fifth in the 160 at the Reno Tournament of Champions Saturday.
While injuries caught up with the Greenwave Varsity wrestling team as a whole in Reno, the short lineup of eight couldn’t keep one wrestler from coming home with a medal.
Sam Goings, 170 pounds, began wrestling at 160 at the Reno Tournament of Champions, and placed fifth in the bracket on Saturday.
Fallon’s next tournament will take the team back to Reno on Tuesday for the Sierra Nevada Classic at the Livestock Events Center.
Fallon coach Trevor de Braga said he knew the Wave wasn’t going to place very high as a team due to having only eight wrestlers.
“We were hoping to get a few more kids medals but in a tough tournament like that you never know what’s going to happen,” de Braga said. “For the most part, we wrestled well. I expect a little more from my guys, but we just ran into some powerhouse guys, and that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
Goings, who competed in the 160 for the first time, won his first four matches over Tim Sommerfeld from Vallivue (Idaho), Jacob Dye from Spanish Springs, Gabe Evans from Union (Oklahoma), and Caleb Conley from Yukon (Oklahoma).
Goings suffered his first loss to Layne Van Anrooy from Roseburg (Oregon), 7-1, and one more loss in his seventh match to Hayden Hastings from Sheridan (Wyoming), 7-1.
“(Van Anrooy) was a tough kid, somehow he got in there. There were just a couple things that he was a little bit better at,” de Braga said. “Sam wrestled great, Van Anrooy is just one of those powerhouse kids you run into.”
Despite the sudden upsets, Goings’ record let him compete in the match for fifth place with Drew Cervantes from De La Salle of Concord (California), where Goings prevailed 12-11.
The Wave’s Terry White, 106, won his first round over Dalton Stutzman from Layton (Utah) with a pin at 5:59 and topped Bowen Doolen from Mountain View High School (Arizona), 6-2.
White lost, however, to Anthony Herrera from Stansbury (Utah), 9-8, and to Cole Zorn from Pleasant Grove (Utah).
White is recently down to the 106 from the 110, and de Braga said he is one of the stronger kids in his bracket from Fallon.
“Terry had some really close matches that came right down to the end, and though he came out on the bottom end of it, he wrestled great,” he said.
Like Goings, Fallon’s Trae Workman, 152, won his first three matches over Randy Reynolds from Corning Union (California), Deavon Crosson from Pueblo West High School (Colorado) and Cole ovens from Crook County (Wyoming).
Workman’s two losses were to the top two wrestlers in his class, James Saylor from Easton (Pennsylvania), and Anthony Wokasch from Mountain View High School.
The Wave’s Jack Swisher won his first match against Kurtis Clem from Chico (California), 3-2, but lost his next two matches by pins to Justis Walton from Emmaus (Pennsylvania) in 5:03 and Nate Cooper from Rocky Mountain (Idaho) in 4:03.
De Braga said that with all the close matches his wrestlers lost, mental wrestling was a big factor that played into holding the a young team like the Wave back.
“It weighs on those kids’ mentalities after a loss like that they’re pretty upset and it seemed like once we got those losses from all our kids they just go out thinking about that last match too much and just wouldn’t wrestle what their capable of,” he said.
When asked about next year’s RTOC, de Braga said the big thing is bringing a full team to compete with some of the 100 schools at the tournament with more wrestlers than the Wave.
“It would be an awesome goal to go in and try to win that thing, but when you have eight kids against a team with 14 kids in the lineup you’re not gonna be able to compete very tough there, so the big thing is getting those kids back in our lineup full,” he said.
The Sierra Nevada Classic is a big tournament for western teams from Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and several California teams that de Braga said are going to be tough.
Sean McCormick, 132, will likely be competing, de Braga said, while Mason Smith, 113, also has a chance pending academic eligibility.
Talon Amezquita, 120, will be out until the new year because of injury.
“Those are kids are capable of winning, and can do well at state,” de Braga said. “The classic is a big one to look forward to. If you win or place there, you’re getting some recognition.”