Cowboys crown four

MEEKER I Due to injury and/or illness, six Meeker High School wresters who were on the Cowboy’s varsity team the first week did not wrestle the second week and the Cowboys did not defend their team title at the Soroco Invitational.
“We didn’t take half of our varsity team that wrestled last weekend in Grand Junction to Oak Creek,” Meeker wrestling coach J.C. Watt said. The Cowboys finished third this year, 10 points behind champion Steamboat Springs. “We should get most of them back this week.”
Willis Begaye (152), J.C. Henderson (145), J.R. Crawford (185), Cody Purcell (103), Devon Pontine (171) and Noah Overton (195) did not make the trip to Oak Creek.
Meeker crowned four champions, including sophomore Tristin Pelloni, who remains undefeated in eight matches at 113-pounds.
“Tristin whipped everybody,” Watt said. “He’s 8-0 with seven pins.”
Watt was also impressed with Aaron Cochran who won the 132-pound bracket.
“Aaron wrestled well and won 6-5 in the finals, beating a good kid from Hayden,” Watt said of the sophomore.
Coach Watt’s son Anthony won the 138-pound bracket with three pins and T.J. Shelton won the 160-pound bracket, coming from behind to pin Rangely’s Colton Coombs.
“Anthony looked good on his feet and T.J. beat two good kids, one from Hayden and Coombs in the finals,” Watt said. “T.J. was behind 3-10 and reversed Coombs to his back and he ended up pinning him in the second. Had he not pinned him, it would have been 8-10 going into the third period, which I bet would have been good.”
Freshman Dillon Frantz stepped up and represented the Cowboys in the 145-pound bracket, as J.C. Henderson was ill. Frantz won two matches, one by pin fall, to advance to the finals and finished second.
“Dillon wrestled well and lost to a tough kid from Steamboat in the finals,” Watt said.
Jake Henderson was the only other Cowboy wrestler to win a match. Kylloe Goedert, Jake Nielsen, Nick Burri, Robby Jensen, Sam Lange, Isaac Robertson and Calvin Shepherd all wrestled but did not win.
“We struggled in the consolation brackets,” Watt said. “Calvin wrestled on varsity for the first time and is now wrestling and fun to watch,” Watt said of the junior wrestler, who just went out for wrestling last year.
“Calvin has improved by leaps and bounds from last year,” Watt said.
The Cowboys will wrestle in Kremmling this Saturday.