Carson High's Jesse Oliva gets his hand raised after winning a match at the Class 5A state tournament in Bullhead City, Arizona Saturday.
Four members of the 12-wrestler contingent that went down to the Class 5A state wrestling meet scored team points for Carson High School Friday.
The one-day state tournament saw the Senators run into some tough foes.
“I think we’ve had better tournaments. There were definitely some good things we saw, but I don’t feel like it was our best effort,” said Carson High head coach Nick Redwine.
Leading the way in team points were Jesse Oliva, JT Heaton and Dominic Porter.
At 106 pounds, Oliva won his opening match with a pin in 3:33, but faced back-to-back wrestlers from SLAM! Academy.
Oliva lost in the semifinal by pin and then fell in the consolation semifinal in an ultimate tiebreaker, by a 5-4 score.
“They had choice, took bottom and he got out. It was definitely a barnburner,” said Redwine of Oliva’s final match.
Heaton went 2-2 at 175 pounds with both wins coming via the pin in the consolation rounds.
The junior’s tournament ended with a 13-6 decision loss to Alex Small of Foothill in the consolation semifinal.
At heavyweight, Porter started his state tournament with a 44-second pin.
However, Porter was forced to injury default in the semifinal with an elbow injury that ended his state tournament.
Senior Lucas Wold won his quarterfinal match by tech fall, but ran into Drake Hooiman of SLAM! Academy, who put together a tech fall win of his own.
Hooiman went on to win the Class 5A state title at 132 pounds.
Wold ended his state tournament by being awarded 5.5 team points.
“They did really well. They had some good wins,” said Redwine. “A couple of the semifinals we had, we ran into SLAM! (Academy) buzz saws. I don’t want to say we didn’t wrestle well against those kids, cause we did. But it’s like it’s a different sport down there.”
Matthew Manley, Keona Basa, Jett Rupert, Ean Thomas, AJ Marhevka, Ethan Linehan, Konnor Crisp and Izaiah Oliva were all state qualifiers, but bowed out of the tournament with 0-2 records.
“I’m really proud of how the team wrestled this season. I’m proud of the team and what we did this year,” said Redwine. “Getting to 100 dual wins with this team was really special. It was a really good year and there’s a lot of stuff we are going to be able to build on going into next year.”