MHS ends season in Moffat County

MEEKER I The Cowboy wrestling team ended its regular season in Craig last Thursday and although Meeker lost the dual (27-54) to Moffat County, they won the same number of matches wrestled as the 4A Bulldogs.
“The kids that did wrestle, looked good,” head coach Joe Gutierrez said of the eight Cowboys who had matches.
Collin Cochran, Meeker’s 215-pound junior, his classmate Justin Hardy (171) and freshman Aaron Cochran (119) all pinned their Bulldog opponents. Aaron Cochran was behind on the scoreboard before earning six points for his team. Freshman Willis Begaye was also behind going into the third period before reversing and putting his 135-pound opponent on his back to win 11-6. Freshman J.C. Henderson won by forfeit at 112.
Freshman Kelly Denny (103), juniors Ethan Overton (160) and JR Crawford were all pinned, as was foreign exchange student Kang Hee Tak.
“Nobody got hurt. That’s the main thing the week before the regional tournament, having everybody healthy,” Gutierrez said. “We’ll work on fine tuning everyone and get them ready for this weekend.”
The first round of the state-qualifying regional tournament will start Friday at 6 p.m. at Palisade High School. The top four wrestlers in each weight will earn a trip to the Colorado State Wrestling Championships held in the Pepsi Center in Denver the following week.
“Depending on how we get seeded will make a big difference on who we get qualified for state,” Gutierrez said. “The way I look at it is they all have a chance, it’s why we wrestle the matches. We have some kids ranked but not very high, hopefully we get that changed this week.”